Elf mage
by mouse angel
Summary: April befriends the new girl Lara. Little does she know that Lara has plans to take her ME and April isn't very happy about it. There she'll discover deep secrets about herself and Lara and come to an ultimate test of courage and loyalty. Genre: humor too
1. New friend

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Lord of the Rings. If I did I wouldn't be doing this right?  
  
A/N: Hey people this is my first fic so be nice. Just to let you know I have read the books so parts of this story will be filled in from the book but most of it will be from the movie just because it's easier. Review will be greatly appreciated, flames not! R&R!!!  
  
Chapter 1  
  
Everyone snickered as the teacher led her to the front of the class. She was wearing normal clothing: dark blue washed flared jeans and a tank top that said superstar in sparkly letters across the front. She also looked very pretty. She had a perfect body, she was tall - roughly five foot ten, she had long light brown hair with blonde highlights, perfect slightly tanned skin and intense turquoise eyes. But she was wearing a silver circlet on her head and about her hips were a few gold chains hanging from her body as if they were sashes. She looked like a cross between a fairy tale princess and an elf. The worst although was when the teacher presented her to us a Laranya Fat-arren. The whole class burst out laughing. She wasn't fat at all, but we couldn't help laughing anyway.  
  
She looked down, embarrassed. "My name is Laranya Fa-Tarren," she said quietly, closing her eyes.  
  
"Oh sorry," mumbled the teacher as if trying to redeem herself in Laranya eyes. Ms. Jarnes got on with her lesson as Laranya sat down at the back of the class.  
  
I should tell you that my class didn't like me. They were really cliquish, and weren't very accepting of newcomers. I had only lived in Sheraton for two years, so everyone shunned me. I was born in northern California, just bellow the Oregon border, on the coast. When I was eight and a half we moved to southern France for three years. Then we moved back to the US, to Sheraton, which was not far off the coast in Washington. I knew they would shun her, just as they did me.  
  
As much as I hate to say this, I was ecstatic at the prospect of another reject.  
  
*  
  
I leapt at the chance to become friends with Laranya. She sat alone at lunch, so I went over to her.  
  
"Hi," I said, smiling. "My name's April." I'm surprised she didn't already know this, since I was the official loser of the class.  
  
She didn't answer. She didn't even look up at me. I hadn't expected her to be this hostile.  
  
"Um can I eat with you?" I asked.  
  
Again no answer.  
  
I sat down anyway. "Okay. Well I'll just sit anyway. Look don't pay attention to those jerks over there. They're just little superficial little freaks and don't know what to think, cause their brains are all messed up," I told her.  
  
She finally looked up at me. "I know. I've been through the same things at quite a few schools. People get the idea that I'm a freak and shun me. Why not you huh?"  
  
"Cuz I'm a reject too cuz I just moved here two years ago."  
  
It was rather sad to see her brighten at the prospect of my rejection, but I held my tongue and refrained from telling her that. She smiled and invited me to sit beside her. "Call me Lara."  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
We became best friends. I went over to her house a lot. I hardly ever invited her over to my house. My parents were constantly bickering and fighting, and I was rather ashamed of them. They often dragged me into their fights so I preferred to stay away from them as much as possible. So Lara and I went over to her house. Lara's parents weren't much better; they ignored her completely. In fact they ignored each other completely. I would have enjoyed this peace. I had a feeling Lara was adopted though, because she looked nothing like her parents. Her mother was an extremely pale wiry woman, with ragged jet-black hair and empty gray eyes. Her father was just as skinny though a little darker skinned, with dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes. He looked far more intelligent than his wife though. Mrs. Fatarren looked like she was on some kind of drug.  
  
Lara's father was very rich as well. He was an executive at a major company (God knows what he was doing in Sheraton), so Lara got everything she wanted. I started to wonder why she didn't have any superficial friends who wanted her money. The family also had a personal trainer, but I didn't think Lara's parents ever went to him. The first time I went over to her house, her trainer had informed me that I was flabby and lazy, and that he would start me on a program right away without cost. I tried to refuse, but he had hurt my ego so badly that I ended up agreeing with him anyway. Also the fact that I went over to Lara's everyday anyway made it rather difficult to avoid him.  
  
So my life became way more enjoyable. I had a friend. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you've been a loser for so long a friend is a welcome change. So my life was enjoyable for the next year and a half.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
But of course all good things come to an end.  
  
It was Lara's sweet sixteen in couple of weeks. Since Lara had decided she didn't want to go out and party, we were going to skip school and just hang out, perhaps wander in the forests behind her house.  
  
I got to her house pretty early since I had been forced out of bed and out of the house by my mother who had screamed at me for not being ready to go to school. I hadn't told her that I wouldn't be going that day.  
  
"Hi," said Lara opening the door for me. "Come on in." Obviously her parents didn't care whether she went to school since her mother was still home.  
  
She invited me into her room. "I thought we could go out into the woods for the day. They're really beautiful."  
  
I could hardly refuse. She had already packed a backpack with lunches and everything we needed. So headed out to the spot she had said we would find a wondrous waterfall. We stopped in a clearing and Lara took out something that looked like a compass. I hoped she wasn't too lost. I wasn't big on hiking and I wanted to get to our destination as quickly as possible.  
  
Suddenly I was overcome with dizziness. The landscape began to spin and I felt like throwing up. I leaned against a tree trying to keep my balance. Suddenly it felt as though the earth was falling away beneath my feet. I clung to the tree like a life preserver aware of how ridiculous I probably looked. But I still felt like I was falling or just moving in a bleak expanse of nothingness where time and space didn't exist.  
  
As quickly as the feeling had come on it went away. I felt firm ground under my feet and my vision cleared. I looked around for Lara but she was nowhere to be found. Then I noticed it was the middle of the night. I must have been in my flu-symptoms-like state for quite a while. But where was Lara? Had she just abandoned me here? Or worse had she gone to find my parents to tell them about this?  
  
Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me. I got to my feet and turned around expecting to see Lara. But instead I saw a shaggy looking wanderer. And what was worse was that I could openly see weapons on him.  
  
The first terrifying thought that entered my mind was 'RAPIST'.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Yah I know that chapter was kinda boring but oh well, she has to get into M-E somehow. Next ones'll be better. Review!! 


	2. March to Rivendell

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Lord of the Rings. (Hey didn't I already tell you that? Oh well)  
  
A/N: Okay new chapter. A lot more exciting!!!!! (I hope). But don't worry it'll get better. Anyway guess that's all. Now, on with the chapter. R&R!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 2  
  
He was just as shocked to see me as I was to him. Of course his reaction was not to scream bloody murder. Mine was.  
  
"Rapist," I screeched. "Help rapist. Rapist. Rapist."  
  
He obviously did not expect me to scream. He also didn't want me to. He clamped a hand on my mouth, but I bit it. He let go, and I kept on screaming. Finally I felt blade at my neck and I shut up.  
  
"Be quiet or I will kill you," he said menacingly. "Now march." He pointed down the hill. I was relieved. We were going toward town and someone would help me there. I obeyed without question and he kept his dagger at my back.  
  
I considered running, but I knew I would never get anywhere. The man looked far stronger than I did, and he had a bigger chance of outrunning me than I had of reaching help first. It was also night, and I would probably kill myself just trying to get down the hill. But the big deterrent was his weapons. I had never seen someone armed so openly. I began to wonder if he had a gun, because he certainly didn't look like he would pull one out any time soon.  
  
We came at last to the bottom of the hill but I saw no sign of Sheraton. Instead I found the remains of a campfire and three midgets. One was rather fat and the other two looked relatively normal except that they were only three feet tall. The weirdest thing was that they weren't wearing shoes. Instead they had rather furry looking feet. They didn't look too happy to be in the forest, but the man looked as if he came out into the forest and pranced around it every day.  
  
I wondered if these men were part of a gang. They sure looked like they would be. You know, the outcast freaks of society.  
  
"Come," said the man to the midget men. "We have now a burden to take to Rivendell. Lord Elrond can decide what to do with her when we get there. And." He turned to me. "I am not a rapist."  
  
"Yeah I figured that out already, doesn't mean you have any less evil intentions," I retorted.  
  
The midget men seemed to think this comment funny, but the man was not amused. So we started off toward the place they had called Rivendell. A couple hours into the walk I started complaining.  
  
"How much further," I whined. "I'm tired and hungry. I wanna go home." It crossed my mind afterwards that I had absolutely no idea how to get home since my town seemed to have vanished.  
  
The man was beginning to become very irritated at me, but he answered me with strained patience. "Rivendell is another two and a half day march from here, if we make good time. As for your hunger, I can do nothing about it. You'll have to live with it. And if you are tired, I could always brighten your spirits with my dagger." He waved it meaningfully at my neck. I gulped and did not complain any more.  
  
"Actually Strider, I bite to eat wouldn't be too bad," piped up one of the midget men.  
  
"No Pippin," replied the man, whom I assumed was Strider. "We do not stop until nightfall."  
  
So we kept on walking. I was lagging quite a bit, and often we had to stop so that I could rest. It pleased me to see that this annoyed Strider, though I was still wary because he still held many weapons.  
  
Finally we stopped as night began to fall again. Strider lit a fire and went out, instructing the three midget men, Sam, Merry and Pippin to guard me. I wasn't planning on escaping. I was leaning more towards sleep and food, and these people could provide me with food and they would guard me while I slept.  
  
When Strider returned he carried with him a dead rabbit. It had an arrow through it's throat and I could see blood stains on it's snow white coat. I looked at it with a mixture of sadness and revulsion. He offered it to Sam to strip and cook.  
  
"I'm not eating that," I declared. "In fact I might just become vegetarian." I had never had trouble eating animals before because I never actually seen them killed; all I had seen was a pink or red carcass or parts of the animal. It had never bothered me, but to see the whole animal dead was horrible. It was like eating your pet, except you had far more chance of disease.  
  
"I suggest you eat something," said Strider. "You'll need your strength for the journey ahead, or would you rather we leave you here?"  
  
I had a feeling that I would not find Sheraton again, no matter how hard I looked. "Isn't there something else to eat?"  
  
"No," replied Strider.  
  
So I ate the stew. It wasn't that bad, but since I was holding my nose the whole time so as to taste as little of the food as possible, I couldn't really judge fairly. I was happy that I managed to keep the food down.  
  
The next day we headed out again. They had given me something to carry, but eventually they relieved me of it since I was stopping every ten minutes to rest. Even without my burden I stopped a lot. We continued the same way for another six days or so. Obviously we weren't making good time or we would have been at wherever Rivendell was, by now. Strider also seemed to be aware of our delay, and every time I sat down he looked at me with an annoyed look, but he couldn't do anything to stop me from resting, since he had made it obvious that he did not want to leave me behind. I relished his annoyance each time I stopped, but I didn't do it too often for fear of angering him to the point where he might hurt me.  
  
On the morning of the sixth day, we reached a river. There was no bridge, but this did not concern Strider. He strode into the shallow river and crossed easily. The water had only come up to his knees. The midget men had a bit more difficulty crossing the river, for obvious reasons. Finally only I stood on the near shore.  
  
"Hurry up girl," called Strider.  
  
It suddenly occurred to me that this man had never asked my name. For that matter, he had never used it. "My name is April Olsin," I shouted at him.  
  
"What?" He seemed totally confused at my statement.  
  
"My is not girl, it's April Olsin," I yelled again.  
  
"Well than April Olsin, hurry up."  
  
I was not about to give in that easily. I was going to have the last word in this argument. "I am not getting my best running shoes wet," I called to him.  
  
"There is no other way across," he called impatiently.  
  
"You'll have to carry me across."  
  
"You'll either come across yourself or we'll leave you to servants of the Enemy."  
  
"And who are 'the servants of the Enemy'?"  
  
They had started to walk down a path, having gotten tired of my stubbornness. Strider looked back over his shoulder. "Suffice to say that they are evil. You do not want to meet with them."  
  
For some reason this statement freaked me out, probably because I thought the Enemy was their enemy gang that was probably far more violent. I splashed across the river and followed them down the path and beheld Rivendell.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Hope you liked that one. It was better than the last, but the next is better. Review!!!!! 


	3. The Council of Elrond with commentary

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. So what else is new?  
  
A/N: In this chapter, April may seem a little ditzy. She's supposed to be. Anyway on with the story!!! R&R!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 3  
  
It was beautiful. It was like a great fairy tale palace, except much more welcoming. The houses were all built of rose or gold colored stone and whitewashed wood. Waterfalls and rivers ran through the village. Smoke was coming out of a few chimneys, but there were very few people that were outside in this village. It was eerily quiet, but peaceful. I looked around but couldn't find Strider or the midget men anywhere.  
  
I heard a voice rise above the dead silence. I followed the voice. I couldn't comprehend the words at first but as got closer I started to discern some of what was being said.  
  
".stands upon the brink of destruction." The voice was getting louder. " None can escape it. You will unite or you will fall. Each race is bound to this fate, this one doom." Suddenly the voice became very clear, and I stumbled over two bodies. As I got up I found that it was Merry and Pippin, the midget men.  
  
"Shh," whispered Merry.  
  
"What is this," I asked.  
  
"The council of Elrond," Pippin told me.  
  
"Shh," whispered Merry again.  
  
"Why aren't you there?" I asked, but they didn't answer me. I remembered Lord Elrond. He was the head of their gang. I assumed these guys weren't the head hanchos, or they would be in the council.  
  
"Bring forth the ring Frodo," I heard the voice speak again. Another midget man came forward, and deposited a golden ring on a pedestal-like rock at the center of semi-circle of other freaks. I studied the rest of the members of this freak-show. The shaggy black one called Strider was there. Another man was there that I particularly noticed. He was light brown- haired and stocky. Instinctively I didn't trust him. There were quite a few shorter, beady eyed, very stocky men, slightly taller than the midget men. They had a major surplus of facial hair that made me turn away slightly disgusted. They looked somewhat like the dwarves in Snow White with a very bad hair day. There were a few other men besides Strider and the suspicious man, which didn't surprise me. Gangs needed Norms to walk the streets in the daylight. The ones that caught my eyes were these pale-blond-haired dudes. They were stunningly gorgeous. It was almost as if they were angels emanating light. They had pointed ears. They're Elves, I thought suddenly, but not in the traditional midget Santa Claus' North Pole elves, but tall and fair, very fair and very beautiful. Their leader Lord Elrond was also an Elf but he was not as beautiful. He looked older. The young Elves looked to be about nineteen through twenty-five, Elrond was definitely in his forties or fifties. He had creases in his forehead and rather foreboding eyes. He had high arched rather freakish eyebrows, definitely not normal like the other Elves at the council.  
  
As soon as he let go of the Ring, the midget man that I assumed was called Frodo looked as it he had relieved himself of a great burden. I thought he must have been very weak, because although gold was a heavy metal, it certainly wasn't so heavy that someone couldn't carry on their finger.  
  
As soon as they saw the ring, the entire Council began muttering. The suspicious, stocky man looked at it with great greed. He got up and spoke of a dream he had or something but I couldn't quite get what he was saying. The thing that grabbed my attention was what happened next. The man extended his hand towards the ring, as if meaning to pick it up, but an aged man stood up with his walking stick raised and began speaking in a foreign language. As soon as the words were spoken a sort of dark power seemed come over the council. The Elves seemed to go into some sort of pain, shutting their eyes and taking deep breaths, as if they were hyperventilating. Everyone else just seemed a little shook up at the shadow that had fallen over the council.  
  
As soon as the old man with the walking stick stopped speaking, the darkness seemed to fade. The sunlight returned to the council area, and the Elves breathed a sigh of relief. But the council members had gone deadly quiet.  
  
"Never have those words been uttered here," said Elrond rather menacingly to the old man. The old man muttered something under his breath that I could not hear and returned to his seat.  
  
(A/N: I know that's not exactly how it goes but I don't have the script for that part since it is only part of the extended edition DVD. P.S. you should definitely watch it if you can.)  
  
Then the suspicious man stood up again. "It is a gift," he said. "A gift to the foes of Mordor. Why not use this Ring. Long has my father, Steward of Gondor kept the forces of Mordor at bay by the blood of our people are your lands kept safe. Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him!"  
  
"You cannot wield it," said Strider. "None of us can. The One Ring answers to Sauron alone. It has no other master."  
  
And by now I was feeling a bit confused. Who or what was Mordor? Who or what was Gondor? And who or what was Sauron and why did he have a ring that acted like a dog? For that matter, why was I thinking that a piece of metal could actually act like a dog? So what's new, my brain told me, you're going a little nuts. Things like that do happen when you fall into bizarro world. It also really annoyed me that Merry and Pippin looked like they understood everything that was going on, and they wouldn't even answer my questions.  
  
The stocky man, whose father was the Steward of Gondor, looked at Strider contemptuously. "And what would a Ranger know of this matter?" he asked.  
  
That's when one the good-looking Elves stood up. "This is no mere Ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance."  
  
The son of the Steward of Gondor looked back at Strider / Aragorn (I was more inclined to call him Aragorn because it sounded more like his real name, but in bizarro world, one never knew) as if willing himself not to throw up. "Aragorn," he said with disbelief. "This is Isildur's heir."  
  
Hey, left in the dark again here, I thought. Who was Isildur and why did it matter that Aragorn was his heir?  
  
"And heir to the throne of Gondor," the Elf told him. Ah now we were getting somewhere. I figured that Gondor was some kingdom and that, since it so far only had a steward, Isildur must have once reigned upon it and that now Aragorn could reclaim the throne. Of course, this did not get me any closer to seeing the point in this meeting.  
  
"Havo dad, Legolas," said Aragorn. I wasn't very sure what havo dad legolas meant, but I think it meant something like shut up and sit down you retarded elf, because he did so.  
  
"Gondor has no king. Gondor needs no king," said the tall, stocky man whose father was the Steward of Gondor contemptuously.  
  
"Aragorn is right. We cannot use it," said the old man who had brought the dark cloud down upon the council.  
  
"You have only one choice," declared Lord Elrond. "The Ring must be destroyed."  
  
"Then what are we waiting for," cried one of the dwarves-with-a-bad-hair- day. He leaped to his feet and grabbed his weapon, which happened to be an axe, and brought it crashing down on the ring.  
  
Well in normal world, this probably would have suffice for the destruction of a solid gold ring, since gold is a very malleable metal, and the axe seemed to be made out steal with was much stronger. Of course in bizarro world things don't work like that. The dwarf-with-a-bad-hair-day was thrown backwards, his axe shattered and the Ring stayed undamaged in the middle of the stone pedestal with axe shards lying around it.  
  
"The Ring cannot be destroyed, Gimli son of Gloin, by any craft that we here possess," said Elrond reprovingly, looking at the dwarf-with-a-bad- hair-day whom I assumed was Gimli (son of Gloin). "The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade." Hey dude, I don't think 'unmade' is actually a word, I thought towards Elrond. "It must be taken deep into Mordor, and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came."  
  
This seemed to shake everyone. But since I didn't exactly get what was going on, it didn't really matter to me. What mattered at that point was that I thought I heard the Ring talking. Yes, talking. I began to think that I'd gone completely insane. It was nuts. Rings DID NOT TALK. But again my reasoning came down to: in bizarro world, anything goes.  
  
"One of you must do this," said Elrond. Do what? I thought at first, then I remembered his little speech before he was rudely interrupted be the Ring. Hey well why don't you do it? I thought at him. Why was it one of this council and not him since he seemed so great?  
  
"One does not simply walk into Mordor," said the suspicious stocky man whose father was the Steward of Gondor. "Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep. And the great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust. The very air that you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly."  
  
Well that answered one question: what was Mordor? From what the suspicious man whose father was the Steward of Gondor had said it seemed to be either some kind of desert with a wall built around it or one hell of a fortress. Of course with one question answered, two more spring up to take its place: who or what were orcs? And what was the great Eye?  
  
"Have you heard nothing Lord Elrond has said?" asked the good-looking Elf, directing his question at the suspicious man whose father was the Steward of Gondor. "The Ring must be destroyed." It was one of those duh statements, where, had he been a Valley Girl, the Elf would have added 'Like Hellooo' to the end of the sentence.  
  
"And I suppose you think you're the one to do it," Gimli said angrily at the good-looking Elf.  
  
"And if we fail, what then?" asked the suspicious man whose father was the Steward of Gondor. "What happens when Sauron takes back what is his?"  
  
And then Gimli, wanting to get back to his ever so important subject of the good-looking Elf not taking the Ring, said, "I will be dead before I see the Ring in the hands of an Elf."  
  
Well this did not please the rest of the elf crew at all jumped up to defend themselves. Just as quickly, the rest of Gimli's crew did the same and they began arguing. The Elves looked as if they wanted to start a fight with the dwarves-with-a-bad-hair-day, but their leader, the good-looking Elf (although they were all relatively good-looking) restrained them. Then the men and the old man stood up not wanting to miss out of the argument. I could discern very little of their continued jabber. There seemed to be a lot of "Never trust an Elf," coming form the dwarves-with-a-bad-hair-day, and I think I heard the old man saying something like "You'll all be destroyed." That was closer to reality.  
  
Only Elrond and Frodo remained seated. Frodo looked pained, like he had a really bad migraine. He was staring right at the Ring. Was it just me this time or was the Ring talking again? I'm pretty sure it was and Frodo can vouch for that.  
  
I think the Ring must have said something to Frodo, because he got up and said, "I will take it." Of course no one heard him, because they were all engaged in a contest to see who could project their voice the farthest. "I will take it," Frodo said again a little more loudly. This time the old man heard, but no one else. He turned from his argument with the suspicious man whose father was the Steward of Gondor. He looked pained for Frodo as if this was the worst thing imaginable to happen. Eventually it registered on everyone and they turned to look at Frodo. "I will take the Ring to Mordor," he said quietly. "Though - though I do not know the way."  
  
The old man bent a little to be closer to eye level with Frodo. "And I will help you bear this burden Frodo Baggins. As long as it is yours to bear." He put his hand on Frodo's shoulder as a sign of allegiance.  
  
Aragorn got up. "If by my life or death I can protect, I will." He knelt before Frodo. "You have my sword." He went and stood beside the old man.  
  
"And you have my bow," declared the good-looking elf joining the group.  
  
"And my axe," roared Gimli, adding himself to the freak-clique.  
  
"You carry the fate of us all little one," said the suspicious man whose father was the Steward of Gondor. "If this is indeed the will of the Council, then Gondor will see it done."  
  
"Here," shouted a familiar voice from the bushes. Sam came running of towards the Council. "Mr. Frodo's not going anywhere without me."  
  
"No, indeed, it is hardly possible to separate you from him, even when he is summoned to a secret Council and you are not," said Elrond, with the first hint of a smile that I'd seen on him. It was not becoming.  
  
"Oi, we're coming too," shouted Merry as he and Pippin ran from their hiding places to sign up for the freak-clique. Elrond looked quite alarmed at their coming. Obviously he hadn't expected to have so many people spying on his 'secret council'. "You'll have to send us home tied up in a sack to stop us."  
  
"Anyway," said Pippin, nodding knowingly. "You need people of intelligence of this sort of mission. Quest. Thing." I had to suppress my laughter.  
  
Merry voiced my thoughts. "Well that rules you out Pip." I'm sure everyone heard that though they weren't meant to. Again I had to suppress laughter, and the urge to go give Merry a high five.  
  
"Wait," called another all too familiar voice from a small group of Elf girls who had remained silent and immobile throughout the whole council. A young girl stepped away from the group to Address Lord Elrond. Lara! "With your permission I would go as well."  
  
Elrond looked at her and quite firmly said, "No."  
  
"What?" she cried. "I would be a wonderful asset. I'm a mage and I have Elven features. I can fight with any weapon, and you must agree that an elf mage is a valuable person in times of need, and I have different powers from Mithrandir, and since this fellowship seems to be based on diversity I think I should be able to go, and."  
  
Elrond put up a hand to stop her onslaught of reasons. "Fine Laranya. You may go. Though I would have rathered you stay with your own people."  
  
"These are my people," Lara muttered.  
  
Well that answered one of my big questions (although it created a whole lot more): how the hell did I get here? Oh yes, my best friend, the Elf mage, brought me here. Oh yes, that made ever so much sense, but I accepted it for lack of a better reason other than I'd died (which I was sure was untrue because I had a big red spot of my arm from pinching myself over and over too make sure it was real).  
  
I decided it was time to make my entrance. I walked right up to Lara and stood about two inches away from her face. "Hello, Lara," I said in a Hannibal like voice.  
  
She looked at me, and quite calmly said, "Hi April. How's it going?"  
  
I had seriously not expected this. "HOW'S IT GOING?" I exploded. "HOW'S IT GOING? OH IT'S GOING GREAT. FIRST I GET A TERRIBLE MIGRAINE AND FALL INTO BIZARRO WORLD. THEN THE LEADER OF A FREAK GANG SHOWS UP AND THREATENS TO KILL ME," I shook my head in Aragorn's direction, "AND THEN BRINGS ME TO HIS BAND OF FRAKO MIDGET MEN WITH SUPER HAIRY FEET," I nodded towards Sam, Merry, Pippin and Frodo, "THEN I COME TO CINDERELLA'S DREAM VILLAGE" I waved my hand around me to indicate our surroundings, "TO FIND A HEAD ELF! WITH FREAKISH EYEBROWS IN COUNCIL WITH MEN, AN OLD MAN, WRONGLY GOOD LOOKING ELVES!, ANOTHER MIDGET MAN AND DWARF! MEN WHO LOOK LIKE GRUMPY WITH A HANGOVER AND PEROXIDE. AND THEY'RE ALL GOING ON A JOURNEY TO AN IMPENATABLE LAND TO WALK INTO SOME KIND OF VOLCANO!!! TO DESTROY A TALKING RING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  
  
There was a long silence. I was aware that everyone was staring at me, and I felt rather uncomfortable. I looked towards the sky, averting my gaze from anyone who had decided that I too belonged to this freak show. No one seemed to feel like voicing an opinion on the comments I had made. They were probably all too stunned. Either that or they just hadn't comprehended any of my screeching.  
  
I felt a tap on my arm. Pippin looked up at me. "Excuse me," he said. "We're not midget men. We're hobbits."  
  
I stared down at him, stunned. Then I started laughing. Of course this just messed with their heads even more, but I couldn't care less. I just laughed and laughed. I laughed so hard tears started rolling down my cheeks. Pippin must have been the only one who had gotten any of my speech.  
  
"Lord Elrond," I heard Lara saying through my laughter. "I suggest she join the Fellowship."  
  
That shut me up.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Hope you liked that!!!!! I know it's kinda lame how Lara joins the Fellowship but she has to get there somehow. And I know she seems like a bit of a Mary Sue but she supposed to be, that's why it's told from April's point of view. Review!!!!!! 


	4. decisions, party and preperations

Disclaimer: Hi I'm the disclaimer. I'm here to tell you that mouse angel own a whole lot of crap, which would make it impossible for her to own any part of Lord of the Rings.  
  
A/N: Sorry this took so long. I've had so much school work and a huge softball tournament so I really couldn't do much, but here it is at last. Thanx for the reviews. I love u people. just to answer some of my reviews . Yah I do know about the Zed (Z) thing and the eh thing cuz I live in Canada. To Cassie-bear01: it's a good idea. I'll definitely use it, but not in this chapter though. Look for it soon in upcoming chapters. Aaanyways on with the chapter!!!! R&R!!!!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Chapter 4  
  
"What?" I actually heard my neck crack about three times as I whipped my head around to face Lara.  
  
Lara just nodded.  
  
My eyes widened, and all I could do was gape at her. "Why?" was the first word I could force out of my mouth. It was a very stupid question; Lara didn't need a reason for anything.  
  
"Because I think the company may need you before the end of our journey," she replied. "We are very reckless people. You are not. It could be useful. Besides," she added with a sly grin, "we could use some comic relief."  
  
I hated to think of myself as comic relief, but it was probably the only thing that I would be good for.  
  
"Can I say no?" I asked.  
  
"Of course," replied Elrond. "None are obligated to go on this journey."  
  
I looked around, with huge eyes (my eyes hadn't yet returned to their normal state) at the Council then the Fellowship. I evaluated the pros and cons, as my favorite aunt had taught me to do when faced with a decision of this magnitude. There were really only one for each category. Con: I could die. Not a pleasant thought. Pro: I get to gawk at the good-looking Elf for an innumerable amount of days. Eventually the 'I get to gawk at the good- looking Elf' part of me won, and I decided to go. I think it was also because death seemed so remote, even though the big practical side of me knew it wasn't, I tended to ignore that side.  
  
"I'll go," I declared. I heard quite a few groans from the Company. "Live with it," I told them. "Blame your wonderful Elf mage, or whatever the hell she is, cuz she invited me."  
  
So I joined the Fellowship (better known as the freak-clique, which I fit into perfectly). I went and stood behind the hobbits, with the other normal sized people (except Gimli, who was quite a bit shorter than the rest of us). I was surprised to find that only Aragorn, the old man, and the good- looking elf were taller than I was. I was about five foot eleven and a bit, which was quite tall. It was an odd thought to have, having just seemingly signed my death warrant, but I have those odd thoughts at inappropriate times very often.  
  
"So be it," declared Elrond, as a found my place among the other members of the Fellowship. All we needed now was Wayne Gretzky to lie down in front of the hobbits, and you would have had the Fellowship hockey team. "You shall be the Fellowship of the Ring."  
  
"Great," said Pippin. "Where are we going?"  
  
This set me off into another fit of hysteria.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
We had a huge feast that night. It was our Parting Feast. You know just to make us want to stay even more than we already did. Personally I thought it was just done to try to tempt us to stay to test our will power. Bad if we stayed, good if we went. I think it was particularly directed at me. Well I wasn't going to give in that easy. I was going to go on the journey, and I was going to enjoy myself tonight.  
  
I found an unexpected friend in Gimli. He seemed to have a bottomless bag of stories, that I enjoyed listening to. My favorite was that of his father's Gloin (who was, I discovered later, a little more soft spoken) and the thirteen dwarves and Bilbo Baggins (a hobbit) who journeyed over the Misty Mountains (God knew where those were) to a dragon's den to retrieve their gold . It also explained how the talking Ring had come to Frodo. Bilbo had found in Gollum's (um who, or more to the point what, was Gollum?) cave and Frodo had inherited it, though Bilbo had never known it's evil purposes.  
  
Throughout Gimli's stories, however riveting they may have been, I couldn't help glancing at the good-looking Elf, whose name I had discovered was Legolas.  
  
"You seem interested in the Elf, miss, very interested," remarked Gimli, as he caught me staring at Legolas for one particularly long stint. "You should perhaps not be. They are not the best folk to be fraternizing with."  
  
"Are Elves just as racist as Dwarves?" I asked, trying to keep him away from the subject of my interest in Legolas.  
  
Gimli looked at me, confused. "Racist?"  
  
"You know, against Dwarves. Well that's not actually the definition of racist, but that's what I mean."  
  
"Yes, very much so," said Gimli confidently.  
  
I shook my head disapprovingly. "You should learn to get along better."  
  
"It would be difficult."  
  
"Yes, it seems so," I drawled, rolling my eyes at his stubbornness.  
  
Eventually the feast ended, and I felt like throwing up. I had eaten way too much, following the council of Gimli (which I vowed never to do again). We were invited to the Hall of Flame, where there was to be singing and dancing.  
  
After a while I got bored of the mystical songs in another language (although I wouldn't have thought I would considering how many good-looking Elves there were there) and wandered off. I wanted to go to bed, but I hadn't been shown to my room. In fact I hadn't even been offered a room. This was probably because I had run off almost immediately after the Council, to go explore the waterfalls, and punch myself for joining. When I had returned the Feast had already started and there was no time to be shown to a room, or change. I still had my jeans, t-shirt, and hooded sweatshirt on that I had worn for the past week or so. I really needed some new clothes. And a bath.  
  
It took me a little while to locate someone who could show me where I could find any one of these things. Finally I found a lady Elf who looked to be in her early thirties wandering through Rivendell. I approached her.  
  
"Um," I said, not quite sure how to phrase the question. She smiled encouragingly at me. "Um, could I, I mean, um, is there anywhere I could take a bath, and perhaps wash my clothes."  
  
"Of course," she said. "We must find Lillanin." She grabbed hold of my hand and began to drag through Rivendell. "My name is Anya." She was very chatty. She talked about anything and everything, not even expecting an answer from me. I just nodded and smiled and hoped she wouldn't be too offended. She didn't even notice my silence. She just kept on talking at me. Had it not be for her pointed ears, she would have fit in perfectly with the 'popular' crowd. Eventually she began talking in another language and I just tuned her out entirely, but kept on smiling and nodding absently.  
  
Finally I heard, "Ah Lillanin," and then more speech in another language.  
  
"Oh Anya," replied a middle aged Elven lady. Her long dirty blonde hair was just beginning to go gray, or in her case silver. She looked to be in her late forties. She wore a kindly smile on her face that was warm and inviting. "I'm sure you've been talking to this girl in Sindarin and yet have you not figured out that she does not speak it?"  
  
"Oh," said Anya bashfully. "I did not realize. Why did you not say anything?" she asked turning to me.  
  
I just turned away shyly. There was a moment of awkward silence, before Lillanin intervened.  
  
"Come," she said beckoning me to follow her. "I will show to your rooms and the bathing house. Oh my child," she cried with horrified expression on her face. "You do need some new clothes. I will find a few dresses and a nightgown."  
  
She led through the streets and walkways of Rivendell to a small, rather open room. Only curtains and two thin walls separated me from the outside. The main chamber consisted of a bed and a large wardrobe. I made a mental note to go inside and have look to see if I could find the magical land of Narnia, though I wouldn't be much better off there than I was here.  
  
Lillanin went into a small separate room that looked to be the bathroom, and came back with a towel, facecloth and nightgown.  
  
"This is to be your room my lady."  
  
"April," I corrected. I did not like being called my lady. It made me sound like one of those Middle Ages sluts who slept with every man that she found it convenient to do so. I certainly did not want that image.  
  
"Alright April," said Lillanin. "I will show you to the bathing houses."  
  
The bathing houses were not far from my room. We came to them and I saw many other Elven women in a large steaming pool. Horrified I realized that these were communal bathing houses.  
  
Lillanin must have noticed my horrified expression. "Is something wrong, ma la - April?" she asked.  
  
I did not want to be anymore of a hassle to Lillanin. "No," I said with a forced smiled. "I'll be fine."  
  
She smiled. "Good. There is soap over there in the far corner over there." She pointed to a bunch of bar and glass bottles. "Will you be able to find your way back to your chambers?"  
  
"Yes, I'll be fine," I lied. I counted on wandering Rivendell for couple of hours before I actually found my room.  
  
Lillanin nodded and left. Quickly I stripped, trying not to call attention to myself. I slipped quietly into the water hoping that the Elves wouldn't hear. I was not so lucky. They heard me and, interested, came over. I felt very self-conscious. I had never considered myself that ugly, but compared to these women I was a hag.  
  
"Ooooh look at her ears," said one that sounded particularly ditzy. She felt around my ears as I rolled my eyes. She didn't notice.  
  
"Doesn't it hurt?" asked another one.  
  
"No," I said in duh-like voice. "Look." I began twisting and flicking my ear in different ways (which really doesn't hurt). They all my gasped at my obvious abuse of my own ear. "It really doesn't hurt. I'll prove it to you." I reached for one of their ears, but they all shied away from me.  
  
"No it hurts us," they said pathetically.  
  
"Riiiight," I said rolling my eyes again.  
  
I left them to their cowardliness and swam over to the far end where the soaps were. I examined the bottles. None of them looked quite like Pantene Pro-V, but it was better than nothing. I picked up one of the bottles and dumped some of the shampoo-like-but-not-quite-so-factoryish-feeling stuff on my head. It smelled of fresh flowers, which bugged me because I would smell like flowers for the rest of the evening and probably the next day as well. Oh well that couldn't be helped. I scrubbed the stuff into my hair, rinsed it out and looked for conditioner, belatedly remembering that this world probably didn't produce it. Feeling that I didn't need to waste my time checking each bottle to see if they did, I grabbed a bar of soap I scrubbed my entire body down twice. I needed to do it three times, but I wanted to get away from the Elven ladies.  
  
I swam back to the edge of the pool where my clothes were. I suddenly remembered that I hadn't washed my face, which needed washing more than anything. I ran out of the pool butt naked, nearly slipping on the pool deck, grabbed my facecloth and hurl myself back in. My cannonball jumped sent a huge wave over the Elves. They were outraged, but so ditzy that they didn't do anything more than hurl what I thought to be insults at me in another language (presumably Sindarin).  
  
I washed my face quickly, and did the same streak I had moments earlier, except this time with about ten Elves watching me. I reached my towel in seconds and threw it around myself. I toweled myself as dry as I could get in 30 seconds, threw on my nightgown and the little slippers Lillanin had given me and ran out the door, the sound of giggling Elves following me into the night.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Twenty minutes later found me still wandering around Rivendell in search of my room. I had checked many only to find that they weren't mine. I had actually once walked in on a couple doing things that I thought Elves should never. But alas, they were only.human-like. After that I didn't check any rooms without at least knocking.  
  
As I wandered aimlessly, I came upon Lillanin.  
  
"Out for an evening stroll, April?" she asked as if it were perfectly normal for me to be wandering around in nightgown and slippers and carrying the dirty laundry.  
  
"No I was looking for room."  
  
"So you could not find it on your own. I was wondering when you look for me for assistance." It didn't cross her mind that I might have had much more difficulty finding her than my room because she moved and my room did not.  
  
She led me to my room. I rolled back the covers and fell into bed and was asleep immediately.  
  
Only minutes later it seemed, I was being awakened  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
It was preparations day. We had to pack.  
  
They had lain out a number of loose dresses, obviously meant for such a long and demanding journey.  
  
"I am not wearing those," I informed my maid servant upon seeing my new wardrobe.  
  
"But you must my lady," she cried (she still hadn't gotten the sentence 'call me April'). "What else will you wear."  
  
"Pants."  
  
She looked horrified at the idea. "But you are a woman," she protested.  
  
"And practical too. Its much easier to travel in pants than dresses."  
  
"Alright."  
  
So my wardrobe was changed to pants called breeches (which looked way too spandexy, but I accepted them not wanting to push my luck any farther than I had already done. I had hoped that would have jeans but they didn't), shirts, long pullover type things that came down to my knees called tunics, underwear and things that looked like bras, boots, and a long hooded cape, obviously meant to be worn like a wind breaker. Then came the backpackish type things except that they looked more like biggish briefcases that you slung over your shoulder; they were not nearly as comfortable as a backpack. Luckily I was travelling pretty lightly. I had only (and I use 'only' very lightly) three sets of my clothing (excluding the cape and boots), a thing that was meant to be sleeping bag, and water bottle (they called it a 'gourd' but I had difficulty getting my tongue around it so I just called it bottle). They didn't make me carry pots and pans or food supply, besides which I think Sam was more than happy to take it all himself.  
  
Finally we were all prepared.  
  
We were all gathered at the entrance to Rivendell. There was a large crowd to see us off. Apparently destroying the talking Ring was that important. They all looked so sad. It made me think that we might not come back alive. This was not a pleasant thought. I tried to force it from my mind, but the subject of my own death was ever present in my consciousness.  
  
Elrond gave a final speech reminding us that we were by no means obliged to go on this mission (Frodo was except from this liberty). The way he said, I would have expected him to think that half of us would turn back half an hour after the trip started. I felt him making this point especially for me. It made my weak resolve to go stronger. I was going to prove him wrong. Stupid Elf.  
  
So we were off, walking through the tunnel-like entrance to Rivendell. Aragorn was the last to leave. He stood rooted to the spot looking back upon a beautiful Elven woman, who was crying as he finally turned his back to leave.  
  
I turned my attention from the sad scene back to the road ahead.  
  
"Mordor Gandalf," I heard Frodo asking the old man. "Left or right."  
  
"Left," replied Gandalf.  
  
I grinned. It was a light start to Mission Impossible 10.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Whoa seven pages. Didn't think it would be that long. Yah I know that chapter kinda sucked, but it'll get better. Review!!!!!!!!!! 


	5. The worst birthday

Disclaimer: I made up this really bad ditty yesterday. It goes like this: *In rodeo music* There once was girl called can't say her name for privacy purposes  
She had a wonderful crush on Elijah Wood  
So I gave her the other eight characters in the FOTR except Legolas  
And called it a ninesome. I reserve all rights to this ditty based on Lord of the Rings (which I do NOT own) and it's final word.  
  
A/N: Sorry to my friend who that based was on as well. Hope you're not too pissed at me.  
  
People I'm review starved. I need reviews, especially helpful reviews with suggestions. I promise that if you review with a suggestion I'll make sure that, that suggestion gets put into my story somewhere in some form (within reason: i.e.: if you tell me that Annakin Skywalker and Harry Potter should suddenly walk into my story I probably won't be able to do that for you.)  
  
Of course I want to say thanx again to those who have reviewed. Ur the best.  
  
Changes: I guess I'll alert you to some changes I've made. First I've changed my summary for the fourth time for all those who care. I'm really bad at them but I think I like the one that's there now. Also I've changed my chapter one. It was incredibly lame and still is but less so now. PS if you started reading this after May 22, 2003 it doesn't apply to you.  
  
Also I have realized that some people may be wondering why April decided to join the Fellowship if she was supposed to be a rational person. After falling into ME you wouldn't think that people's minds function correctly. After falling into it and trudging to Rivendell for six days, April's mind would probably have some very weird way of functioning (*cough* like mine). So that's why there's a nice 'happy coincidence' that she happens to put her fifteen minute old crush in front of her rationality. Anyway just thought I'd clarify that.  
  
And now enjoy chapter five!!!! REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 5  
  
So we walked and we walked and just for a little change of pace, we walked some more. I had thought I was in reasonable shape, but obviously I was wrong. It was worse than our six day trip to Rivendell. I wanted to stop so much but nobody would. They just kept on going and going and going. I swear someone must have given these guys Energizers batteries.  
  
You see, I began hallucinating, or semi-hallucinating. Since we traveled by night so I couldn't really hallucinate, but I was getting there.  
  
We had traveled through the afternoon that first day and on through the night. When Gandalf finally called a halt I pulled out my sleeping bag thing and collapsed on it.  
  
"Don't you want anything to eat?" asked Boromir (the suspicious stocky man whose father was the Steward of Gondor).  
  
"Couldn't care less," I muttered sleepily. I had already crawled into my sleeping bag thing and food was my number two priority, after sleep. Then I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
Again it seemed only minutes later that I woke up. In fact no one had woken me up, but the midday sun was glaring down at me. I opened my eyes blinking away sleep and trying to make the spots in my vision disappear. I looked around. No one was awake. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and stretched. I was so stiff.  
  
I got up and saw two figures sitting immobile on a rock: Legolas and Lara. I walked over to them and waved a hand in front of their eyes.  
  
"Morning," I said. I would have said 'Good morning' except I didn't see anything good about it.  
  
"Shush," they said together.  
  
"What Blondie?"  
  
"You'll wake the others," said Legolas, not getting the insult.  
  
"Again I must return to: What?"  
  
He gave me a sour look (or at least I think it was sour. I couldn't really tell. Legolas tended to try to show as little expression as possible which had led me to another sarcastic nickname 'Smiley') and turned away.  
  
"So what's the plan for today?" I asked, ignoring their order to be quiet.  
  
"We march," said Lara. "We must keep moving. Our journey depends very much on speed."  
  
It seemed speed was the solution to everything. As soon as the others got up we ate quick meal. I was told to eat lightly, but ignored it having not eaten since sometime yesterday; I was ravenous.  
  
This is how we continued for the next week. Walk, sleep, eat, walk. Walk, sleep, eat, walk. I was always exhausted. I knew I could go back, but I was being stubborn. I wanted to stick the journey out. In the back of my mind I knew this journey would last months, but the big flashing signs in the front of brain (they had to have been my hallucinations) kept telling that it would end, soon, and that if I didn't stick it out, I'd be a coward. My own stupid personality refused to willingly let me become a coward.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
"It's my birthday tomorrow," I informed our camp one night exactly a week into our journey.  
  
They looked at me. They said nothing. They just sat there as if I had been commenting on the weather.  
  
Finally Lara spoke up. "I suppose you're telling us this because you want presents?" She said it in such an exasperated tone. It really annoyed me. This was important to me. I was turning sixteen. I'd be able to drive, had I been in NW (Normal World).  
  
"I want them," I sneered at her. "I don't expect them."  
  
"In this situation you shouldn't expect anything," she informed me in such a snotty tone. I hated it.  
  
"I didn't say I expected anything," I yelled.  
  
"Please keep your voice down," begged Gandalf. "You'll alert our enemies."  
  
I was past caring if our enemies found us. I was past caring if a band of Nazis with Hitler in the lead found us.  
  
"Why d'you bring me into this screwed up world anyway? You obviously don't want me here," I screamed.  
  
"You have a purpose," she said calmly. "I could not tell you what is, even if I wanted to, but you must remain here."  
  
"No," I yelled. "I want to go home."  
  
Lara just looked at me reprovingly. "No you don't want to go home. I assure you of that."  
  
"Who are you to tell me what I want?"  
  
Lara pulled a cell phone from her backpack. I didn't how she had gotten it there, but at that point I wasn't about to question what super-elf-mage- girl could do. She held it up to my face.  
  
"Call home," she told me.  
  
"It's not going to work you know. We're in a completely different world." I had at least come to accept that.  
  
"Just do it."  
  
I dialed my home phone number. To my amazement, it rang. Someone picked up.  
  
"Hello," said a familiar voice. It was my mother's.  
  
"Hello. Mom. It's April."  
  
"I'm sorry I think you have the wrong number."  
  
"Oh. Sorry." I hung up. It was so instinctive to do so. I took the phone away from ear and dialed my number again.  
  
"Hello." It was my mom's voice again.  
  
"Mom. It's me. April."  
  
"Look. I don't know who you prank callers are but don't do it anymore. I don't have a daughter." She slammed the phone down, hurting my ear.  
  
I removed the phone gingerly from my ear. I was so shocked at those last five words that I forgot I was mad.  
  
"She doesn't remember me," I whispered.  
  
"No. No one does." She sounded cold. She felt no sympathy for the pain I was feeling. MY MOTHER HAD JUST TOLD ME SHE DIDN"T HAVE A DAUGHTER. "Now do you want to go home?"  
  
Suddenly all my anger came rushing back. "You bitch," I seethed. "I hate you."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Dun da da da!! See I told you I use suggestions that are given to me. The end sentence was one of my reviews. Thanks to Cassie-bear01 for that idea. Anyway I have to go anonymously flame my friend who I'm talking to on phone right now. I'm on a really high sugar high. Hence that sentence. See ya. REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!! 


	6. The dark mirror

Disclaimer: Hey look I just found the publishing rights to Lord of the Rings under my bed. I now officially own Lord of the Rings. It's mine, all mine. My own, my precioussss. *wakes up from dream. Looks under bed and finds nothing but dustbunnies* NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!. Evil dream. Stop mocking me!!!!!  
  
A/N: Sorry this took so long. I've been so busy with studying for exams. I've had this ready for so long. Plus now my uploading thing kept telling me that I haven't uploaded anything right after it tells me that it has. I know that doesn't make sense but it's true and it's annoying! BTW my team came first in our division for the Hoop it up tourney (basketball tourney). I finally earned a trophy. Yeah. Okay enough of my life story. Still need reviews people. Oh for the purposes of the plot and realism I must make my main characters friends again. Sorry to those who liked the bitchiness. REVIEW!!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 6  
  
The next morning I awoke to someone shaking me. No one in the company had woken me up by shaking me. I had always awoken before anybody needed to wake me up. Nobody knew better than to try. But the day before I had slept badly and now I was really tired, and someone needed to wake me up. Instead of opening my eyes, I brought my arm around and hit the person on the head. It wasn't deliberate. I was totally unconscious of it, like when they hit your knee with a hammer.  
  
I opened my eyes. Legolas was standing a safe distance away from me rubbing his head. I winced inwardly. I would have laughed at anyone else, but I felt horrible about hitting Legolas.  
  
I definitely had a big crush on him. I had tried to convince myself otherwise, but I knew I was wrong. I had a huge crush and I hated it. Love is so painful, if only because rejection is torture.  
  
We had to leave nearly right away. We ate a quick breakfast (/ dinner since it was dusk) in silence. Obviously the only thing anyone could think about was last night's argument between me and Lara, and no one wanted to bring that up.  
  
We walked the rest of the waning evening and through the night in absolute silence. I didn't even complain. I was too busy cursing Lara and thinking up impossible schemes to get revenge on her.  
  
We stopped again just before dawn. I looked around at our surroundings. They looked almost the same as when we left: we were in the foothills of some giant mountains to the left that resembled the Rockies. I wondered if we were actually getting anywhere. It was like being on the beach when you want to get to a certain point and it doesn't look far but really it takes two hours to get there because everything looks the same. It was a very annoying feeling.  
  
Lara decided this was her time for redemption. She came over to me as I sat by myself on a rock.  
  
"Hi," she said cheerfully.  
  
"What do you want?" I asked, sneering.  
  
"Look I just wanted to say that I'm sorry about yesterday. I acted really badly and I guess I should have been able to handle the situation better. Anyway I'm sorry." She was talking quickly. She wasn't enjoying this apology.  
  
"Oh thank you. I feel ever so much better," I said sarcastically, determined to drag out her suffering for as long as possible.  
  
"Look I'm sorry. What else do you want me to do?" She was getting annoyed.  
  
"Send me home."  
  
"I told you. You don't want to go home."  
  
"Yes I do."  
  
"Well I can't send you back there anyway."  
  
"Well I want to go - What?" It had just registered what she had said. "How can you not be able to send me home if you brought me here?"  
  
"It's really difficult to explain."  
  
"We have plenty of time," I remarked. I was determined to learn why I was here.  
  
"Okay. Well let's see. You know that thing I was looking at right before you came."  
  
"The compass?"  
  
"Yes that. Well it's not a compass. It's called a dark mirror. It allows for transportation between worlds." I was waiting for more explanation but she had stopped.  
  
"So why can't you send me back?"  
  
"Well that's also difficult to explain. And it would probably be difficult for you to accept."  
  
I was past not accepting things. Now things just were and I didn't question them. "Lara I've accepted that you're some magical thing. I think I can accept this dark mirror. Go on."  
  
"Okay. Well this world has more gravitational pull magically than the old one did. Magic exists here and people believe in it, but on Earth no one believes in magic. Everything was proved by science. Essentially the dark mirror feels the magical pull of a world with more magic is stronger than that of one without and when it's activated it will pull anyone present into that world."  
  
I gaped at her. It was a lot to grasp, but I forced myself to accept it. If what she said was true, I was stuck here for good. "So there's no way to send me back home?"  
  
"There is a way," she said. I brightened. "But I can't do it." My heart fell. I was stuck. There was no getting around it. There were no loopholes. What I would have done for a loophole.  
  
"But you can do everything," I cried.  
  
She laughed. "Yah right. I wish. I can do a lot, but certainly not everything."  
  
"So what's the way to get back?"  
  
"Why? It won't help you."  
  
"Just interested." I was determined to find a loophole. Everything had loopholes. I was beginning to think I was schizo. About thirty seconds ago I had convinced myself of a complete absence of loopholes. I probably was schizo. BW (bizarro world) does that to you, ya know?  
  
"Fine." She was becoming exasperated with my questions. "Going back requires a certain amount of magical essence or strength from the person wanting to go back. Because the world you want to return to has no natural pull it won't take you back like this one brought you into itself. You possess no magical essence and you lack in strength as well."  
  
"I have strength. Look!" I flexed my arm.  
  
Lara laughed. "Not that kind of strength. Strength of mind. Discipline over your mind and your actions. You don't have that."  
  
"How do you know? I could."  
  
"Have you ever meditated?" she asked raising an eyebrow. "It's one of the simplest forms of control over the mind."  
  
"No, but it doesn't mean I can't."  
  
"Okay," she said grinning devilishly. "Let's see you fail."  
  
"How do I do it?" Not the way to show her that I could do it, but I needed to know how.  
  
"You have to let your mind slip away from your conscious thought. It's empty. You can feel everything around you. Remember your mind is blank."  
  
I closed my eyes and focused on thinking of nothing. Unfortunately focusing on thinking of nothing did not clear your mind or help you slip away from your conscious thought. I tried for almost fifteen minutes and succeeded in giving myself a headache. Finally I decided to just fake it. I closed my eyes tightly, then let them slowly relax, giving the impression that I had gone through some sort of enlightenment.  
  
A few minutes later I fluttered my eyes open. "I did it," I said trying to sound really joyful about it.  
  
"Yes April, and I just saw a pig fly," she drawled rolling her eyes. "It went that way. It had little pink wings kind of like Pegasus, and -."  
  
"Alright, alright. Stop mocking me. I can't do it. So?"  
  
"You asked me if there was any way you could go back. I told you how, and now you know you can't. The dark mirror will not help you back."  
  
I had totally forgotten the reason of this meditating lesson. I had failed at meditating and my last chance of getting home was gone. My pessimistic schizo part had been right. There were no loopholes. I hung my head in defeat.  
  
"Sorry," said Lara gently putting her hand on my shoulder. "I wish I could something for you."  
  
"Thanks," I whispered. I was forlorn. I was sad. I couldn't go home. I felt so lost. I got up and moved away to higher rock to think or perhaps just to feel sorry for myself. I looked out amid the beautiful scenery. Before it had all seemed like dream, or some horrible nightmare, but now it was painfully real. I was tired, but I wasn't going to sleep this afternoon.  
  
I was lucky I didn't.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: So that's the end. There should be more faster and sooner since my exams are in two days and once they start I'll be able to write more cuz I won't have classes. Sorry that chap wasn't as good as some of the other I just needed to explain how she got there, though I don't get why I need chapter to do that. Oh well must have been a sugar high. REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 


	7. Flee

Disclaimer: Ooh my favorite part. I get to ruin Peter Jackson's and the heirs of J. R. R. Tolkien's fun. I will now announce it formally. I do not own the Lord of the Rings. Ha. You can't sue me. I don't own it and I just said so, so you can't sue me. Ha. In your face!!!!!  
  
A/N: Well guess what another chapter. Yeah. It so much easier to write more since I have no homework and I have no school. I should probably go out and get more exercise but oh well. Shrew that. Shrew is my new word btw. It's supposed to be screw but my friend typed shrew by accident on MSN and now we use that. Oh yes and I'm also very pissed cuz some guy stole all my CDs. All 22 of em. And the worst part is, I know who it is. Or at least I saw him walk by our house 3 times. My friends and I are now thinking up ways to torture him. They are very gruesome.  
  
Oookaaay enough of my life story. On the non real one. People I need reviews. If you read review. Even if it's only hi your story sucked, or in a much more pleasant way hi your story is great. Anyways I don't care what you write just please review *puppy dog eyes*. And remember imaginary candies full of sugar for all those who review. Well enjoy!!!!!! R&R!!!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 7  
  
I had always had an eye for detail. Not relevant detail. Just pointless details that didn't really make any difference. For example, our socials had asked us to comment on a historic politician's face. Apparently it was to help us understand his motives or something. We were supposed to look mostly at his eyes (which I learned afterwards). The first thing I said was 'he has a pimple on his chin bone near his ear.' Everyone started laughing. I was so embarrassed. I hardly ever spoke again in class for fear of seeing the stupidly obscure pointless thing instead of the stupidly obvious relevant thing.  
  
I guess this time it helped.  
  
We had passes through a deep ditch on our march the night before. It was long and ran down from the mountain, a continuing valley. It was fairly deep. A normal sized person could stand in it and it would be up to the neck. We had stopped not far from the ditch at dawn.  
  
No one was awake. They all slept today. Even Lara and Legolas who seemed not to need sleep, snored gently. I made a mental note to ask them about it. I didn't want to disturb them. They looked so peaceful with their eyes glazed over like they were. Wait a minute? That wasn't right. Their eyes weren't completely shut. I decided to let it go. Too many things in BW were far more weird than this; it wasn't something to dwell on.  
  
I returned to the rock from which I had taken a brief respite to check on my sleeping companions. Apparently the watch duty was assigned to whomever didn't feel like sleeping that night. There was always someone.  
  
I stood up on my perch to get a better view on my surroundings. Although I had been gazing at them all day, they had never really sunk in. My mind had been elsewhere, dwelling on the knowledge that there was no tap-your-shoes- three-times-and-say-there's-no-place-like-home way to get back to NW. The evening sun was waning away. I wondered when Gandalf had planned to start. I didn't want to wake the others up, fearing their wrath if they had not planned to leave at the normal time.  
  
So I kept a vigilant watch through the evening. I strained my eyes to see through the semi-darkness of the approaching night. The shadows were lengthening and fading. The wind was biting but I kept on watching trying to ignore the chill.  
  
I looked back at the ditch. I could swear the shadows were different. They were somehow different, darker. You see? Stupid details. Who notices when shadows are darker? I forced myself to look away but my thoughts kept returning to that. They were darker. I could've sworn to God (which really wasn't that big because I'm not religious and I don't believe in God) that those shadows had gotten darker.  
  
The moon began to rise. I peered back at the ditch. The shadows were moving. Not much but I could tell that they were moving. Something was out there. Suddenly the wind began to get stronger, or perhaps just louder. It shrieked in my ears like the wails of the dead or undead. Horrible, screechy, demented wails like banshees tormented my ears. I took my eyes off the ditch for a moment. I looked back. Something was definitely moving, a big black mass, and it wasn't the trees.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
"Legolas," I whispered, shaking the elf. "Legolas wake up. I think there's something out there."  
  
Instantly he was on his feet. "Wake the others," he told me.  
  
I obeyed, glad that someone who could handle the situation was doing so. I woke everyone else up and told them what the situation was.  
  
Aragorn, Gandalf and Lara went to consult with Legolas who was peering over one of the many boulders in our campsite. Gimli and Boromir remained with the hobbits who looked frightened. I went to cower with them. I wasn't feeling that brave or stubborn anymore. I wanted to go back to Rivendell where I was safe.  
  
I climbed up a rock and flattened myself on the top, trying to get a better look at the shadowy darkness that I had seen. I knew it was there now. There was definite movement.  
  
I caught a few snatches of conversation from Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas and Lara.  
  
"What do you see Legolas?"  
  
"Goblins," he replied, "and many. I do not how many for they still lie concealed within the shadow."  
  
A loud howl split the night. It was more of a wail, but I recognized it. It was the same howl I had heard on the wind earlier in the night.  
  
"Wolves." That was Aragorn.  
  
"They will attack tonight I fear. We must leave at once," said Gandalf.  
  
"We cannot run," said Aragorn. "They will catch us. We must fight. We have no other choice."  
  
"I will not risk -." The rest of his sentence was cut off as another wail came from the wolves. I climbed down the rocks.  
  
I was scared. Really scared. It was the first time that I had had the threat of open battle upon me. I was shocked that I wasn't already hyperventilating.  
  
Aragorn, Legolas, Gandalf and Lara returned to the company shortly after me. We were going to run. Aragorn given in. He looked angry and annoyed, obviously brooding because his suggestion wasn't the one chosen.  
  
"We leave now," said Gandalf. "Pick up your bags. We leave in ten minutes."  
  
Lara went over to Gandalf.  
  
"Do you think they know we're here?" she whispered, but the words were whipped back to me by the raging wind.  
  
"Yes. I have no doubt that they know we're here," he replied. "I'm hoping we can leave without being seen. It will give us a bit of a head start."  
  
It was a lot to hope on. We might have been able to get out without being seen but to escape entirely seemed almost impossible. We were on the top of a small rocky hill. We would be able to go down the opposite side and basically in the direction that we wanted to, but once we got to the next steeper much higher hill they would see us, if they didn't reach our campsite first. I was sure that we'd be much slower. We had packs and a burden pony.  
  
We were all ready within the allotted time. Gandalf led us down the hill and into a wide flat valley. We power-walked, sometimes even jogging lightly. I was tired but I was too scared to notice.  
  
We reached the base of the next rise and began climbing. The going was much slower. It was steep, rocky and the shale and scree was slippery. We made a lot of noise on the rocks, but it was covered up by the roaring howls.  
  
Suddenly the wails got louder and more distressed. They had reached our camp. It was a race now. A game of cat and mouse. And we were the unlucky mice.  
  
We had almost reached the top of the hill. Once we reached the top they would certainly see our shadows.  
  
"They will see us," Lara said loudly, trying to be heard over the wails.  
  
"Down," shouted Aragorn as we reached the top of the hill. We all flatten ourselves on the ground.  
  
"We must hide,' said Sam. For once the hobbits were useful. And sensible.  
  
We crawled along the plateau-like top of the ridge until we reached the other side. This side was even steeper, but we had to go down. It was slow going, as we inched down trying not to tumble down the steep incline. It would have been faster, but I doubted we would have been able to escape the goblins and wolves after. I failed to even notice how bizarre it was that goblins (who shouldn't have existed) and wolves were in the same army and trying to attack. It all just flew by now and I accepted it. The howls were real enough and I didn't want to stick around to see if the goblins were.  
  
After what seemed like hours we reached the foot of the hill. We were in a deep tree-less ravine. The grasslands continued up the other side of the ravine, not ten feet away. I kept expecting to see our pursuers breach the top of the hill, but they never did.  
  
We had come to a bit of indecision as to what we were going to do next.  
  
"Which way shall we go," asked Gimli.  
  
"We must hide," said Boromir.  
  
"There is nowhere to hide. They would discover us soon," cried Aragorn.  
  
"We must go a way they won't expect," cried Gandalf. "Let us go south east. If these are the minions of the dark lord or of Saurumon, they will expect us to be heading to the gap of Rohan."  
  
We headed toward the forbidding mountains, always looking for a place to hide. The ravine was dark and deep, concealing us slightly better than the open territory.  
  
We had been moving for about half an hour when, I looked back at the ridge for a moment. A moving shape breached the top. Then many others behind it. They had reached the top. They would see us soon.  
  
"They've reached the top," I called to the front of the line. No one said anything, but the pace quickened.  
  
We walked / ran for another long while. I could not have said how long but it seemed like at least three hours. I guessed that it was only about an hour. I was exhausted, past my physical limits, but I was too scared to pay attention to those. It was run or die.  
  
Another half an hour brought us quite close to the mountains. There were many piles of rocks and debris lying around from previous rock slides or avalanches. They offered perfect hiding places.  
  
"We will hide in one of those," said Gandalf pointing to the piles. I sighed gratefully and prepared to go to the one he had pointed out.  
  
"No wait," said Lara. "We should perhaps press on a little bit. If they come this way they will expect us to hide here or in any place available. The farther we go, the less likely we are to be found."  
  
I was prepared to kill her. She had just stolen my relief. I thought I would die. But I knew what she said made sense. The goblin things would expect us to hide as soon as possible because we would be tired out. If we went a little farther they might not look for us.  
  
"I agree," said Legolas. I had just noticed that the two who didn't seem to ever tire were the ones that suggested going further.  
  
And then Aragorn agreed, as did Boromir and eventually Gimli, Gandalf, Frodo and Sam (who probably only agreed because Frodo did). Merry, Pippin and I all wanted to stay here, figuring that we had traveled far enough so that the goblins wouldn't find us. We were out-voted though.  
  
So we continued our run at the same grueling pace. We passed many good hiding spots, but none met the standards of Lara. She was determined to break me before we got to a 'good' hiding spot. My lungs felt like bursting. My heart was beating way too fast to avoid a heart attack. My legs were numb; I couldn't feel them anymore. No pain no nothing. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Did your legs start to fall off when they became numb? I was going to die. I was definitely going to die.  
  
Just as I thought I would collapse Lara pointed to a pile of rocks.  
  
"We will go to those and look around," she informed us. Gandalf seemed to be happy to let her deal with carrying out her own plan.  
  
We reached the spot within five minutes. I stopped, grateful that we had to go no further. I was about to enter the little cluster of rocks, but Lara had a different idea.  
  
"We should go slightly further, just to that rock pile over there," she said.  
  
"What?" I exclaimed irritably, though it didn't carry much defiance. I was too tired to argue, but I was going to do it if it meant getting out of another run. "Why?"  
  
"This pile is the ideal hiding spot. The goblins will know that if they come across it. They will think we hid here and look for us in here. But if we hide somewhere that doesn't look like a hiding spot the chances of being found are much lessened."  
  
"The lady makes a good point," said Aragorn. "We will go on to where she wishes."  
  
It actually didn't take us that long to reach the spot that Lara had been talking about. It was really only a couple minutes away, which was another part of Lara's strategy. If we were close to a good hiding spot the goblins wouldn't think to check the poor hiding spots because they would assume we'd taken the best one.  
  
The place Lara had chosen was small and cramped. We all squeezed in. We even managed to subdue Bill the pony and get him in as well. It was very uncomfortable but unlike most of the others I was lying flat on the ground and therefore able to stretch out.  
  
Lara, Legolas and I were posted as a watch. Them because they had extremely keen eyes and ears and because they didn't need sleep, and me because I couldn't sleep. Despite our exhausting run I had way too much adrenaline to fall asleep. I didn't know how the others managed to sleep. We were being chased by things that by all rights shouldn't exist but did. Of course they were probably used to the idea that these things existed, and probably worse.  
  
An hour passed and no one came. And yet another hour and nothing. I was beginning to feel cramped and very uncomfortable. Blood seemed to have stopped flowing to some part of my body that the others were lying on, particularly Aragorn and Boromir. I wanted to go out and stretch, but Lara forbade it. It saved my life.  
  
Just as I was about to insist of letting me out, Legolas spoke up.  
  
"I hear something," he whispered. "It's moving quickly and this way."  
  
I abandoned all thoughts of leaving the hiding place. Now I could hear them as well. They were coming this way, and with them those terrible howls came.  
  
They were coming. Hundreds of horrible, disgusting creatures. Their eyes were dilated to a point past human. They must have lived in the dark continuously to have those kinds of eyes. They were unclean and smelt terribly of blood. It covered their meager torn clothing. They reminded me slightly of very over-grown bugs. With them came wolves. The wolves actually looked like a crossbreed of badly treated attack dogs and small grizzlies. Saliva foamed from their mouth as they raced towards us carrying the goblins.  
  
In our hideout no one moved. No one breathed. Everyone was frozen as they either watched or heard the enormous pack of goblins approaching. They were searching, but they were doing so carelessly, only briefly checking possible hiding spots.  
  
"Dawn is near," Legolas, who was hair-raisingly close, whispered. "They are heading back to the mountains."  
  
I didn't know how the goblins heading back to the mountains was a signal of dawn, but both of his statements were true. I looked at my watch (which I had neglected to take out of my bag until we reached the hide out and which surprisingly still worked. Well I guess it wasn't that surprising since the cell phone had worked). It was 6:30 am. He was right. It was almost dawn, but why did that affect the goblins returning to the mountains?  
  
They had reached us. They were passing by us now, and many of them were searching. They would look at the pile of rocks, but they would never stop. We were well concealed. We had lain a grayish cloak that blended with the rocks over ourselves. They glanced at us and kept on going.  
  
Finally they stopped coming and the last one past. For a long time everyone was still, then Legolas ventured to get out. Of course it seemed somewhat impossible since Aragorn and Frodo were lying on top on him, but somehow he managed to wriggle his way out. I rolled my eyes. It would have been much easier to simply tell them that it was safe to go out.  
  
"It's safe," he called scanning the horizon. "Come out."  
  
We climbed out of our hide out one by one, glad to be free of the cramped space. I stretched. I was so tired. I really wanted to sleep. I hadn't slept in over a day.  
  
"More are coming," Legolas said. I jumped back in the hide out so fast that everyone started laughing at me. They obviously didn't seem concerned that the things we had just been running from were coming.  
  
"How many?" asked Gandalf.  
  
"Roughly a score," said Legolas. "It is difficult to tell. They are still far away."  
  
"We will not wait in hiding for these," declared Boromir. "We can certainly defeat them if they number only one score."  
  
"Yes," growled Gimli. "Let us fight this time."  
  
"It would be better to simply meet them," said Aragorn. "We would lose less time than if we simply waited. We number eleven. We need not more than that to defeat these stragglers."  
  
"Um," I piped up. "You number ten. Count me out."  
  
"You will have to fight sometime," Gandalf told me. "It is inevitable on this journey."  
  
"Yes well I'd like to delay that moment, and probably my death, for as long as possible," I drawled.  
  
Gandalf shook his head.  
  
"Even the peace loving hobbits who come from the Shire are braver than you," said Boromir, laughing.  
  
"Well let them be. I prefer life."  
  
So we continued walking, coming ever closer to the rapidly approaching goblins. I had suggested going around them but my suggestion had been turned down because apparently the most direct route towards wherever our destination was, was towards the goblins, or in their general direction.  
  
As soon as we were within about five hundred meters of the goblins we stopped. I jumped into a small hiding place and sat cowering like a frightened mouse.  
  
"Perhaps you need one of these," said Lara handing me a sword.  
  
"I doubt I'll be able to use it," I declared, but I took it anyway.  
  
"Yes I doubt you'll be able to use it as well but you probably will if you feel the need. Like if some goblins attack you," she drawled.  
  
I ignored the insult. I was right, as was she. I could hardly hold the sword properly, despite how light it was, let alone use.  
  
Fortunately as the two sides clashed, mine seemed to get the upper hand. This of course I could only guess because I refrained from looking out at the battle except to make sure that no goblins were coming towards me. My plan B (which was more or less my plan A since my original plan A was to fight with the sword) was to run.  
  
I didn't have to resort to plan B. I didn't even have to resort to plan A. We, or I should say they, won quickly and easily. They were all awesome fighters, the hobbits less so then the others, but they were just as brave.  
  
"You can come out now," said a voice. It was Merry. He was laughing at me.  
  
"Thank you," I said holding my nose in the air and trying to retain as much dignity as possible. I avoided looking at the heap of dead bodies strewn about the ground. The smell was already overpowering.  
  
"We travel by day now," said Gandalf. "It may increase our chance of being seen but it will keep the goblins from us."  
  
"Why?" I asked  
  
"Because goblins fear the light," said Aragorn. "During the day they hide within their mountain tunnels."  
  
Even after that battle was won, we kept on going. We hiked for hours, but the pace was slower since we weren't fleeing for our lives.  
  
Finally we stopped again at sunset among many piles of rocks. I flopped gratefully to the ground and was asleep within minutes, gladly surrendering the watch someone else tonight.  
  
It had been a long day. I didn't need anymore like those, but I knew I was going to get them.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Okay I know that was a very big distortion from the book and the movie, but I wanted something to scare April. Anyway I probably won't do anymore super distortions like that. I hope. I can't promise anything. Actually Helm's deep will be pretty distorted, but that's all can think of now. Well you know what to do now: REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 


	8. author's note

Hey guys  
  
I haven't posted in a long time and I wont be able to post till like the end of July cuz someone's gonna be staying in my computer so I cant use the computer. But don't worry cuz I'll keep a journal and write chaps in there as much as I can. By the end of July I'll have like four chaps ready to type. So sorry that you have to wait.  
  
Oh yah and I wanted to kinda wanted to respond to a very long review. I think some of this I may have already mentioned but here we go anyways. April wasn't invited to the council, she just sort a found it. Yes I made a huge distortion, and extremely huge distortion. As soon as Aragorn arrives they do not have the Council, but in my version they do and Merry and Piipin are not invited but they go anyways, same with April. Lara is a bit difficult to explain. I don't want to say anything right know because it would ruin the story, but trust me it'll be explained later on. Yes I realize that they leave 2 months after the Council but in the movie it only seems like 2 days and besides, April's decision to go was very on impulse kinda thing. She goes cuz of Legolas. Anyways if she had 2 months to think it over she probably wouldn't go and then there would be no story. And you'll notice April went cuz Lara said she had a purpose and probably wasn't as reckless (not that they listen to her). So she goes cuz of that too and cuz Lara asked that she come. Lara is 'special'. And also the girls don't fight thing. It's kinda hard to conform to that cuz my main character is a girl, and besides half of the fics on ff.net LOTR have girls who fight as Ocs so its kinda hard to rectify that. Just wanted to clear that up.  
  
Next chapters are coming at the end of July. Again sorry for the delay, but there will be a lot then.  
  
See ya  
  
mouse angel 


	9. The music box

Disclaimer: I just realized that I may have been lying a bit when I said in chapter 3 that I didn't own anything. I do own things. A lot of things. One of them being a computer. Others includes clothes (very necessary), a TV (no so necessary but interesting all the same), and whole lot of other stuff. Unfortunately publishing rights to Lord of the Rings are not among my possessions, otherwise I 'd be rich, but I'm not. Now I have to go beg Bill Gates for some money. I'm sure he can spare. I do use Microsoft so I deserve to be rewarded.  
  
A/N: OMG I just saw Pirates of the Caribbean *so much drooling that I need a bucket*. My friend was so distraught when Orlando Bloom kissed the girl at the end. It's so good. It's so funny. Johnny Depp acts so drunk / gay. It's really funny. Of course having Orlando Bloom in it makes it all the better. It was so obvious what was gonna happen though, cuz I mean it's Disney. But I still have plans to see it another three times within the next two weeks.  
  
Enough with that little rant, about the movie that has the objet of my obsession in it. I know I said that I wouldn't be able to update till like the end of July but I got my computer back sooner so here's a nice little update for you. R&R!!!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 8  
  
We started marching by day. It was easier. I felt more rested because I got sleep when humans are supposed to, at night. Unfortunately it was balanced off by the fact that Gandalf made us march farther and longer everyday. This was apparently to shake off the freaky goblins in case they decided to follow us (goblins hated the light). Personally I just though that it was for his amusement and for any one else who might wish to watch me suffer. I assumed that that was probably a lot of them, since none seemed to enjoy this journey, let alone with a bitchy, cowardly, useless teenager along.  
  
On the tenth day I decided that it was time to unbraid the french braids that had been braided into my hair before we left. I would have done it before, except that I had been a bit busy being tired and lazy or running away from freako goblins and basically trying to stay alive. It was rather disgusting. Instead of coming smoothly, I had to pick them out, tearing my fingers through my dirty sweat-soaked hair.  
  
"Hey Lara," I called. She looked at me. "You wouldn't happen to have any shampoo?" I asked in a sarcastically hopeful voice.  
  
"Sorry," she replied, as if the question had been serious, and valid. "But I do have brush and some hair elastics if that helps."  
  
"Better than nothing," I said.  
  
I took the brush and attempted to comb out some of the tangles in my hair, while dunking my head in a stream of ice cold water. I was only successful in increasing the amount of tangles in my hair. It took me half an hour finally brush out the last tangle. I rinsed it out again and brushed it again and put it in a pony tail. Then I took the hair that I had brushed off my head off the brush and threw it into the stream. It would probably choke some fish downstream but that didn't really bother me at the moment.  
  
I returned to our camp. Dusk was approaching, but I didn't feel like sleeping. I became extremely bored. I tried to sleep but I couldn't. Music would have helped, but I didn't think I was going to find any of that here, or at least, none that I wanted to listen to. I tossed and turned for about an hour before I got up and decided to relieve whoever was on watch.  
  
It happened to be Lara.  
  
"What's up?" she asked as I approached.  
  
I decided to ignore the fact that she had noticed my presence long before I was within earshot. "I can't sleep," I said. I sounded very whiny, like a child complaining to her mother.  
  
She didn't respond in a very mother-like way. "Why?"  
  
I shrugged. "I just can't," I replied. "Music would help."  
  
"Yes, some of the company can sing," she informed me. Not that it helped, because the rest of them were asleep.  
  
I looked back towards the rest of the company. My eyes fell immediately on Legolas. "Yes well I suppose we shouldn't wake Blondie to sing me to sleep," I drawled. I burst into silent hilarity at my own joke, tears of mirth running down my cheeks. Despite my huge crush on him, Legolas was such an easy target for my little jokes that I couldn't help making fun of him.  
  
"Actually, Legolas is very good singer," said Lara. This only caused me more hilarity, as I fought to keep myself under control.  
  
"Well I don't think I need sleep that bad," I said regaining a small portion of my dignity as I managed to speak properly. "Besides I don't think he knows any Britney Spears." This sent me into another fit of laughter. I collapsed to the ground, my ribs aching with laughter.  
  
Lara rolled her eyes and waited for me to calm down. "If you want old world music you should have told me," she said. She jumped off the rock and went over to her bag and rummaged in it.  
  
Yes, it had crossed my mind to ask you if you had a walkman, but I didn't feel like it, I thought sarcastically.  
  
She came back with something in her palm. She opened it and showed the thing to me. It was made entirely of gold except for a strip of black glass in the middle and smaller piece of black glass thing on one side and a couple rows of holes at the top. Gold wire ran out from the thing. It fit neatly into the palm of her hand.  
  
I looked at her like she was nuts. Those looks seemed to be common these days. "Yes Lara," I said in a fake soothing tone, like I was talking to someone who wouldn't understand. "Solid gold pagers are useful, but so are SUVs and jet planes," I said with a touch more meaning in my voice. "But what I really wanted was music."  
  
She rolled her eyes at me. "It's a music box."  
  
"Uh huh? I see," I said totally confused.  
  
"My magic is somewhat based on my feelings, hence if I'm feeling light and happy, it will work better, because my brain can concentrate on the magic. If I'm dark and depressed my magic doesn't work as well, or it's harder to work because I don't concentrate on magic; I concentrate on the things that are making me depressed. That's why I made this music box. Music seems to relieve a lot of my cares so that I can concentrate on magic."  
  
Another load of information to take in about Lara. I nodded dimly, only comprehending slightly what she meant.  
  
My concern though wasn't how her magic worked. "So how does it work?" I asked.  
  
"I just told you," she said.  
  
"No the music box."  
  
"Oh. Well it works on heat, sort of. You wrap these wires round any part of your body that gives off heat. Upper arms are usually good because they are usually covered, and therefore warm. Then a currant goes through the wires and makes the thing run. Well that's not all that makes it run, but it helps. I put magic in there too or certainly would not work. It's voice activated, so all you have to do is say the name of the artist then the title of the song and it comes on, as long as that song is stored in there."  
  
"Uh huh." Again I was totally confused, but I got how you worked it. Wrap the wires around your upper arm and say the name of the artist and song. That was all I got. "So how do you stop it?"  
  
"Just put your finger over that black strip there." She pointed to black strip on the front of the little golden box.  
  
"What's the other one for?" I asked, pointing to the smaller black strip on the side of the box.  
  
"That's the volume control," she said. "Just pulled your finger along it in the direction that you want, louder or softer."  
  
I looked at it and noticed a little green marker that I hadn't noticed before. I put my finger on it and pulled it right then left. The little green marker followed my finger. "Cool," I said in such a ditzy way that I felt like slapping myself. I was just glad Legolas hadn't been around to hear that.  
  
I took the music and strapped it around my arm. "How my songs have you got on here?" I asked.  
  
"A lot," she replied. "I've lost count. If there isn't one on there, it just won't play."  
  
"Okay. Um." I couldn't really think of a song and I looked really retarded talking to a gold box on my arm. Finally I just said the first song that popped into my head. "Britney Spears, baby on more time," I said to the little thing.  
  
Immediately 'oh babin, babin' boomed out all around me. It was a sound that could have certainly been heard miles away.  
  
"Stop, stop," I screeched at it. Then I remembered how to stop it and put my finger on the black strip.  
  
Suddenly Legolas walked up. As if things couldn't get any worse. "What's wrong?" he asked.  
  
"Didn't you hear music?" I asked wide eyes. He gave me a confused look, then looked at Lara, who just shrugged. Big help she was. Now he thought I was both cowardly and crazy.  
  
For once Lara saved me from this awkward situation. "Legolas go back to sleep. April and I were just having a rather heated debate." That still didn't explain me asking if he had heard music, but if Legolas thought I was crazy, there was no need for an explanation. Legolas did as Lara asked and returned to his bedroll.  
  
As soon as Legolas was gone I turned to Lara. "Okay so you wanna explain that. How come it was so frickin loud and even super ears over there didn't hear it."  
  
"To put it simply, those things are like surround sound headphones except a little more advanced. Because those wires touch nerve ending, they can receive information for the brain, not much but some. For anyone without my magic, that would be everyone but me, if they don't think of anyone that they want to hear the music, then only they will hear the music. If you think of people that you want to hear the music then you and those that you think of will hear the music. For me it's slightly different. If I don't think of anybody, everybody hears the music, so I have to think of who I want to have listen before I put it on. That's why it's easier to give it to someone else."  
  
Ooooooooookaaay, I thought. She had just explained that really fast and I had gotten a bit of it. I her one of those looks that Ron always gives people in the Harry Potter movies (I loved those, I had seen then three times); one of those eww that's digusting, and weird, but I still don't get it all at the same time looks.  
  
I took the thing off my arm and dropped it back in her hand. "You know what. You keep it. I thing I can get to sleep just fine without it." I returned to my bedroll. I took me a long time to get to sleep, but I finally did.  
  
Little did I know that that stupid little music box would save my life. Quite a few times.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Wow did that chapter suck. Two weeks and that's all that I could come up with. That's horrible. I deserve flames for that. I also deserve a lot of slaps for that. I'll do it to myself right now. *Hear screams as I slap myself*. Review if you want. Flames are not particularly welcome but they are expected. *walks off saying 'stupid chapter, bad mouse angel, you call yourself a writer, eug* 


	10. Lessons

Disclaimer: -mouse angel: Guess what I own  
- mouse angel's friend (wait mouse angel has a friend, whoa): the  
publishing rights to the Lord of the Rings  
- mouse angel: yup  
-mouse angel's friend: sweet, we're rich  
-heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson: Yes we get to sue.  
-mouse angel: no no I don't. I'll give them back. I really DON'T  
OWN ANYTHING.  
  
A/N: Hey I'm back *people run away screaming. Mouse angel: shut up*. Just got home from a three week vacation where I increased my potc viewings. I'm up to six. I also went to this ultra cool camp called Educo. We did rock climbing (real and fake) and high ropes and low ropes and canoeing and a five day backpacking trip into the BC mountains and we went tubing down a river. It was awesome. And they have a sauna and a sweat lodge and a lake to swim in and they have the BEST cook in the world. Her food is to die for.  
  
Anywho, back to the chapter. I didn't exactly know what to call it so the title has very little to do with the chapter.  
  
-April: I wanted to call it How the music box saved my life the first time.  
  
-mouse angel: But I'm calling it Lessons  
  
-April: I think I should get because I'm the main character.  
  
-mouse angel: You're fictional. I'm the REAL narrator, so shut up. Lessons it is.  
  
So whatever you wanna call it, it's here right now, so enjoy. R&R!!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 9  
  
I was awoke bright and early the next morning. Legolas had somehow been given the duty of waking me. I was half-awake before Legolas came over to me. I always tried to stay asleep or resting my eyes until it was absolutely necessary to go. I heard Legolas coming over, though it didn't exactly register in my brain. He was about to shake me getting ready to jump, when I awoke fully.  
  
At the sight of him reaching for me, I instinctively sat up and leaned away from him. "No touchee!" I practically yelled. Legolas looked almost scared and jumped back. Everyone laughed, or giggled, or smiled, or did something to show their amusement (I think I heard some snorting coming from Gimli's direction). For once I didn't share in this hilarity. But I guess it was only fair because no one else ever shared in my self-invoked fits of laughter.  
  
And so we kept walking. I swear these people were trying to kill to me. I had thought we were on the same side, but it seemed that they decided to ignore that. We walked like mad people. I was so tired that I didn't complain, and basically didn't talk at all. I figured that this was why we kept going at such a pace, because a) it shut me up, and b) we made good time anyway.  
  
I also became extremely bored. We had been walking, or I should say army marching, parallel to the same mountain for almost two weeks. The scenery was no longer stunning. It was just getting dull and the same.  
  
It was time I decided to amuse myself, or at least to relieve some of my boredom. I asked Lara for her stupid little music box back. She willingly gave it up, since I was less likely to give away our position using it than she was. I felt pretty ridiculous strapping the little gold box around my arm, and I was even more self conscious this time because I had made the entire company stop so that I could put it on.  
  
"It a music box," I said trying not to make myself sound like it was a perfectly normal thing.  
  
I didn't do a very good job. They all looked at me like I was crazy, looks that - like I said before - were becoming more and more frequent. As soon as I was done, they all walked away without a word, even Lara.  
  
The music helped. I just picked random songs and kept walking. The big advantage was that since the music was so loud around me, I couldn't hear anyone, so if I was lagging and they told me to catch up, I didn't do it. They had to actually touch me (which seemed like a fate worse than death to some of them, especially Legolas since this morning) to get my attention.  
  
Sometimes I didn't even have the music on. I just ignored them for fun. Sometimes I would see them calling me, or beckoning to me with their hands, and I would wait for them to tap me. It amused me beyond belief.  
  
Once they sent Legolas back to do that chore of telling me to hurry up. He was about to tap me when I jumped back and put my hands up. "No touchee," I said. I had gotten over my embarrassment from this morning. I laughed as he backed away with scared eyes just as he had this morning. After that they never sent him back to tell me to hurry up.  
  
Finally we stopped for the day. The spot was atop a rocky hill. A few sparse bushes covered the hill but mainly there was just a whole lot of rock and ground. It seemed earlier than usually; the sun was not completely beyond visible yet.  
  
"Perhaps we could have a song, or a story," suggested Lara.  
  
"The singing voice carries too far," said Gandalf. "I'm afraid that we should not risk it. I'm sorry. But it would be nice to hear a story."  
  
"Perhaps April could tell us a story," said Merry. Merry, Pippin and Lara were the only ones who didn't use something like miss or lady in front of my name. I was thankful for that. It made me feel like I was in the 17th century when someone called me a 'lady'. Technically I probably was in that century. The time period for BW seemed to match about 17th century Europe, or somewhere in there. I had never been too great at history.  
  
"No you don't wanna hear my stories," I said. "But I could offer a little music."  
  
"Did you not hear Gandalf?" asked Aragorn sharply. "There is to be no singing."  
  
"Calm down, Aradork," I said. Aragorn and I hadn't been on very friendly terms after my rapist comments (or rather screams) and my uncooperative attitude on our long march to Rivendell (which seemed so short compared to what we were doing now, endless). This new nickname that I had given him didn't help at all, though I suspected that Aragorn didn't did have a great idea of what a dork was. "I was gonna play it from the music box."  
  
Again I received many more looks that suggested I was crazy. I ignored them.  
  
"So what do y'all wanna hear?" I asked.  
  
"Why don't you chose something?" said Frodo. It was the first time he had actually talked to me. Usually he confided in Aragorn, Gandalf or Sam. A lot of the time though, he was off in his own little world. I didn't blame him though. A talking ring probably had far more interesting things to say than the rest of us.  
  
"Um okay." I thought for a moment then whispered the song to the little box. I was getting used to talking to an inanimate objet. I thought all of their names.  
  
Immediately the song came on.  
  
"Stop, stop," cried Boromir.  
  
I put my finger on the little black strip, and the music stopped. I gave Boromir a confused look. "Why?" I asked.  
  
"It will be heard," he said.  
  
"No it won't. Lara explain to him how it works. I'm not sure I get it completely. I just know how to work it." Plus they were more likely to believe what she said than what I said.  
  
So Lara explained how the thing worked to everyone. Finally I was able to play the song.  
  
I've been searching for reason and I'm running out of time  
  
I can feel that it's the season  
  
Time to make up my mind  
  
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do  
  
There are so many thoughts in my head  
  
There are two roads to walk down  
  
And one road to choose  
  
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said  
  
I'm thinking over the things  
  
Thinking over, thinking over  
  
Thinking over the things that you've said  
  
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things  
  
Am I ready for forever  
  
Oh, God, show me a sign  
  
Cause if we're to be together  
  
Then it's got to be divine  
  
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do  
  
There are so many thoughts in my head  
  
There are two roads to walk down  
  
And one road to choose  
  
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said  
  
I'm thinking over the things  
  
Thinking over, thinking over  
  
Thinking over the things that you've said  
  
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things  
  
He wants to marry me, carry me far away  
  
He wants to love me for life  
  
He wants to be with me every morning I awake  
  
He wants to hold me thru the night  
  
Father, which way should I go?  
  
I cannot clearly see  
  
And, oh, I love him so  
  
But only you know if he's the one for me  
  
Thinking over, thinking over  
  
Thinking over the things that you've said  
  
I'm thinking over, thinking over, thinking over the things  
  
And I can't really tell ya what I'm gonna do  
  
There are so many thoughts in my head  
  
There are two roads to walk down  
  
And one road to choose  
  
So I'm thinking over the things that you've said  
  
Oh, is this where I wanna be?  
  
Thinking over the things that you said.  
  
(A/N: For those of you who care that was Thinking Over by Dana Glover from the soundtrack to Tuck Everlasting. I don't own it)  
  
Lara and Legolas had been cringing throughout the whole song. I didn't get it. It was a nice song and everyone seemed to like it.  
  
"That was very pretty," said Pippin.  
  
"Why was she asking her father about the man she loved?" asked Sam. "Why did she say that only he knew which way she should go?"  
  
"Sometimes a father's advice is greatly needed," said Boromir. "Most of the time it is well that a father choose for his daughter, especially on the matter of marriage, because he is much wiser than her."  
  
"No," said Legolas. "I do not agree. Matters of love should be determined by oneself, not by someone else."  
  
"I believe she is referring to God," I said. This seemed to have no effect on calming them down because a) they were very intent on debating the subject of parents interfering in their children's love life, whether she was referring to God or not and b) I don't believe they were too familiar with God.  
  
So the argument continued unabated. No one seemed too eager to take sides. I'm sure Aragorn would have sided with Legolas, but he didn't want to show it for fear of offending Boromir, his kinsman. The hobbits didn't seem that interested in the subject being debated. Gimli listened though without much interest. I was beginning to wonder whether there actually were female dwarves. I knew there were female elves and women, and I had no doubt that there were female hobbits, but female dwarves didn't leave a pretty picture in my mind. I'm sure though Gimli would have sided with Boromir, if only to be against Legolas. Gandalf just rolled his eyes and went to sit somewhere else. Lara watched with amusement without offering any input. That was a first.  
  
I, on the other hand, thought it was just annoying and boring. I didn't really care about what Boromir and Legolas had to say on parents interfering with their children and arranged marriages. I wandered away and sat on a rock. There seemed to always be an abundance of those for me to sit on. Everywhere we stopped had rocks.  
  
The hobbits also got bored and came over to join me. None of them were that interested in conversation. They just sat there beside. I had begun to notice that in BW no one said anything that wasn't absolutely positively necessary. It was boring not to be able to talk about nothing, but I didn't think that the hobbits would be interested in my Hollywood gossip. It would probably make them move farther away.  
  
"Um, so what do you guys think about arranged marriages and parents interfering and all that crap," I said desperate to start some kind of conversation.  
  
At first no one answered, then Frodo volunteered an answer. "I believe that no one should have someone else tell them who to love. They should be able to make that decision on their own."  
  
"Yes Mr. Frodo said it," said Sam. Merry and Pippin nodded their agreement.  
  
And that ended that topic of conversation; on to Hollywood gossip.  
  
Everyone was so content just sitting and ignoring Boromir and Legolas' conversation. It annoyed me. I was so bored.  
  
"Hey anyone bring any cards," I muttered to myself. I half expected Lara to bring out a pack and say 'let's play poker'. Actually that wasn't a bad idea. Whenever I got to wherever we were going, I was going to make a pack of card and teach my little company how to play poker. I could perhaps win some food or something off them.  
  
But no one answered.  
  
I decided that it was time to bring out the music box. Dancing would relieve my boredom, although it would probably heighten my levels of craziness in everybody else's eyes.  
  
I made sure everyone could hear the music. It would probably force Boromir and Legolas to shut up, and it would drown them out to everyone else if they didn't. Besides I felt like attention and, since they already thought I was crazy, dancing my horrible NW dance moves wouldn't hurt, though it wouldn't help either.  
  
"Christina Aguilera, Genie in a bottle." That would definitely make them think I was the weirdest girl in BW, and that would be pretty hard to do. I made sure to think all of their names to make sure they looked at me.  
  
The music came on. Immediately Boromir and Legolas stopped arguing to stare at me. Everyone else stopped whatever they had been doing to stare at me. I began doing the nice Genie in a bottle moves to the dance, making myself look like a genie.  
  
Then the most unexpected thing happened. Well actually not the most unexpected thing; the most unexpected thing would have been for giant elves to with Boromir beside them to come join in the dancing, but this still quite unexpected. Merry and Pippin decided to join up on my little stage of rocks. They began dancing with me, at first trying to imitate what I was doing, then simply doing their own moves. If I hadn't known better I would have said they were drunk. Unfortunately this sent me into one of my fits of laughing and I nearly broke my neck falling off the rock.  
  
Merry and Pippin, confused, stopped dancing because I had stopped and fallen off the rock. They thought that this was one of the moves to the dance and they too fell off the rock on purpose right on top of me. And let me tell you, they may have looked small but they were no featherweights. I nearly coughed up my whatever food I had in me as Pippin fell on my stomach, winding me and nearly breaking my ribs. Merry landed on my thighs which wasn't nearly as painful, plus Merry was lighter than Pippin.  
  
I was laughing so hard that tears were running down my cheeks. And the laughing had become very demented. I would let out a sort of snort between sobs and gasps as I tried to regain the breath in my lungs. I hadn't even stopped the music. Christina Aguilera still belted out 'I'm a genie in a bottle, you gotta rub me the right way'.  
  
Within moments everyone had rushed to our side to see if we were all right. And what do you know, we were.  
  
"Perhaps you could stop the music know, lady April," said Legolas, cringing slightly.  
  
I frowned, then I suddenly got why he seemed to cringe every time I put the music on, and Lara as well. I had forgotten that they had very acute and so all sounds were amplified for them. A grin slowly spread across my face. "It's okay Blondie," I said, using the familiar nickname. "I like this song, and since no one but us can hear it, I think I'll leave it on."  
  
He shot a look like daggers at me, but didn't say anything. Legolas wasn't one to complain. But Lara had other plans. She came up to me, lifted up my shirt sleeve - which was extremely loose - and pressed her finger on the little black strip to stop the music.  
  
I glared at her, and my face contorted into a sneer.  
  
"That was not nice," said Lara.  
  
I rolled my eyes. 'Duh,' I mouthed at her.  
  
After that I was ordered to go to bed. I created way too much havoc. And Gandalf had some thinking to do, which meant we all had to shut up. The best way for me to do that was to sleep.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
The next morning I actually woke up on my own. It was one of those rare times on this trip when my body decided it didn't need all the sleep it could get. Stupid body. It might also have been the clang of swords that woke me up.  
  
I sat up and looked around. Everyone else was up. Boromir was practicing sword fighting with Merry and Pippin, while Aragorn coached form the side. It occurred to me to go over and learn as well, since I had absolutely no fighting skills, but the presence of Aragorn deterred me. Sam was cooking breakfast. Frodo was sitting with Gandalf and Lara, Legolas and Gimli were just sitting around.  
  
"Move your feet," I heard Aragorn direct one of the hobbits. He was smoking.  
  
"You look good Pippin," said Merry.  
  
"Thanks," replied Pippin.  
  
"Faster," said Boromir.  
  
I got up and rolled my sleeping pad up and put away my stuff. I headed over towards Sam and the food. He was cooking sausages, real food. Gandalf must have given in to the hobbits. We usually didn't have such good food. I took a knife and speared one.  
  
"Hey," said Sam. "Give that back!" He grabbed the knife from me and replaced the sausage in the pan.  
  
"Hey!" I cried. "I was going to eat that. I'm hungry."  
  
"They aren't done yet, miss April. Wait."  
  
"Hmph," I grunted and stalked off.  
  
I went down to sit by Aragorn. This pleased him just as little as it pleased me, but out of politeness he endured me, and out of my own desire do to all possible things to annoy him, I endured him.  
  
"You know, smoking is bad for you Aradork," I told him.  
  
"Please refrain from calling me that miss April," he said tersely. "And pray tell why is smoking bad for me?"  
  
"Well it blackens your lungs and will probably eventually kill you. Especially if you are a chain smoker. It also decreases your lung capacity, which lowers your overall physical fitness and leads to sluggishness and breathing problems, such as asthma and bronchitis."  
  
He looked completely confused, and probably didn't even care what I talking about.  
  
"Your funeral," I said shrugging. I went to go see if the sausages were done. They weren't. Sam needed to learn how to cook faster. I sat down by the fire to wait. Legolas jumped up on a rock and scanned the horizon for no apparent reason.  
  
Suddenly there was a commotion. Merry and Pippin were tackling Boromir. I jumped up to join in the action, but Sam said something which I didn't quite catch since he was directing his question at Legolas. I thought he was saying that the sausages were ready. I plopped right back down beside him.  
  
"Nothing. It's just a wisp of cloud," said Gimli. I saw that we were directing our attention to a little black cloud in the sky. It was something I would have both expected a lot and never expected from this crew (depending on my mood). They were looking and commenting on clouds.  
  
Suddenly Boromir, Merry and Pippin stopped their tussle. "It's moving fast and against the wind," said Boromir, also commenting on the cloud. Interestingly enough, he was right. These guys were quite the little weather people (to be politically correct).  
  
"Crebain from Duneland," shouted Legolas.  
  
"What from wherenow," I shouted back, though he didn't seem to hear me.  
  
"Hide," shouted Aragorn at almost the same time.  
  
"Huh? Why?" I asked standing there stupidly as everyone else ran for cover. To my dismay, Sam dumped water over the fire, drenching the sausages as well. Just as I was about to go over and reprimand him for ruining breakfast, Aragorn grabbed my arm and pulled me into a hiding spot. We had hardly gone down when an enormous flock of birds flew into our camp. We were hiding from CROWS!  
  
"Why are we -" I began, but Aragorn clamped a hand over my mouth. I struggled a little then decided to let it go. I could ask when we got out from hiding.  
  
That came soon enough. The crows wheeled through the area a couple of times, obviously noticing us (it was very hard to hide from crows), then left.  
  
"Spies of Sauruman," declared Gandalf, as we emerged from our hiding places. "The passage south is being watched. We must take the pas of Caradhras."  
  
There was an impending silence following Gandalf's statement, as if someone had just predicted our deaths. I took that opportunity to voice my many questions. "Spies of who?" I asked. "Do you mean the crows? Where are Caradhras and Duneland? What are Crebain? Why were we hiding from crows?" I managed to spit this all out before I noticed that they were all staring dumbstruck at me.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
My stream of questions prompted the idea that I was severely lacking in my knowledge of anything about Bizarro World. This led to another bright idea: that I should be school in it. Guess who got to teach me? Aragorn and Legolas.  
  
It was a very unpleasant experience. Since we didn't have time to waist a day sitting around while I learned the history of Bizarro World, I was taught on the move. At first I tried to listen to music while they were talking, but they soon caught on to that and Legolas confiscated my music box. Stupid elf. I was beginning to hate elves, even if I had a huge crush on this particular one.  
  
So the long history and present of Middle-Earth (that's what it was actually called) was taught to me. And it was a condensed version. I would have hated to hear the non-condensed version. It took them two days to give me the whole lecture. At night when we stopped. We spent an or so pouring over maps that Gandalf had brought. I really didn't need to learn all of what they were teaching me, although I knew the customs of places would come in handy, if we ever met anyone else in this barren land. The history of Middle Earth, or at least the relevant part could be summed up in: there was and evil guy named Sauron who made rings and gave them all to the people of Middle Earth (the important people at least, because I noticed the hobbits didn't get any rings); three for the elves, who still had these rings because they were super powerful. Figures. Seven to the dwarves. Of course the dwarves didn't have them anymore; all their rings were taken back by the Dark Lord or lost. And nine to men. The men eventually got corrupted by the rings and turned into little black shadow thingies, ringwraiths as it were, which everyone quailed at the mention of except me because I had absolutely no idea of what they were. Then Sauron made himself a master ring because he wanted to indulge himself and then he had control of all the other rings. This master ring was the one Frodo held. We were going to destroy in the only place possible: the cracks of doom. Not a very appealing name, but we were going. This could all be summed up in a depresing little poem I was forced to memorize:  
  
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for mortal men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.  
  
There was also this wizard guy called Saurumon who was more powerful than Gandalf, and now he was evil and corrupted and now he was in league with Sauron. He also lived really near to the road we were supposed to take, so we couldn't go there, so we were going over a mountain instead.  
  
I also found out that about three thousand years ago, there was a great war and this guy Isildur could have destroyed the Ring, but he didn't. This really annoyed me because if he had then we wouldn't be making this stupid journey and I could still be safe and warm and well fed and clean, but instead I was here in extreme danger, cold and tired and starved and very very dirty. For once he wasn't an elf. He was one of Aragorn's ancestors if I remembered correctly from the not so secret counsel of Elrond. Stupid man.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Holy crap. I just realized that that was ten pages. Whoa. Anywho there are some distortions there like the breakfast thing with the sausages. They were actually having lunch. And I wanted to do the song thing cuz I thought she meant real father (like dad) for the longest time too. And it wasn't the greatest chapter, but as always REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and tell me what u think!  
  
Namarie  
  
Mouse angel 


	11. The mountain

Disclaimer: I have just won 300 million dollars in Lotto Super 7 and now I will go and attempt to buy the rights to Lord of the Rings off Peter Jackson or whomever else might be in possession of them, which my wonderful imaginary money. A wonderful waste of money.  
  
A/N: I have had this ready for soooooo long it's unbelievable that I haven't but posted it but I am doing so now.  
  
News in my life that you probably won't find interesting but you'll get it anyway: I just made a total fool of myself in acting, horribly degrading but fun; I will soon have seen Pirates of the Caribbean for the 7th time muahahahahahaha; yah that's about it.  
  
The chapter. Enjoy R&R!!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 10  
  
Caradhras. How I loathed that name.  
  
It wasn't so bad at first, though the clothing left a lot to be desired. I don't care how many people say silk is warm, it is skimpy and it's what hot lap dancers wear. It was not, on the other hand, what you wore up a freezing cold mountain. But I was forced to wear them and wear them I did. I was relieved to find that I had some wool clothes, and though it was itchy, they were better than silks. I was also given a fur cloak to wear, which I refused to wear at first, but eventually the cold forced me to put it on, breaking down my animal rights principals. To my disappointment there was no fleece. That was probably due to the fact that fleece couldn't exist in BW because they had no plastic and fleece was essentially recycled plastic.  
  
Towards the beginning it wasn't so cold so I didn't need to wear all my clothes. The snow line was quite high, despite the wintering season. But before long we reached snow. That was when I learned that elves were either super anorexic, had ultimate osteoporosis or just didn't contain all of their internal organs and bones, or just a bit of each (personally I thought Legolas looked way too skinny for his size). But whatever the reason, they were extremely light. Neither Lara nor Legolas sank on the snow even when the rest of us were up to our knees (or in the case of the hobbits, their waists) in the white snow.  
  
For once I wasn't the one who lagged. I was actually at the front of the sinking line. This probably due to the fact that I had seen snow before, a lot, and was used to it and liked it, whereas everyone else was grumbling and muttering about the cold, wet snow. Aragorn as usual was at the back doing a sort of sweep. Every time someone stumbled or fell he would be right there to catch them.  
  
Once Frodo fell and Aragorn as usual caught him. As he righted himself he clawed at his neck for the Ring, but found it wasn't there. How it had come off was beyond me, for it had seemed securely chained, but however the way, it was definitely not there. Frodo looked around wildly, searching for it. Boromir had picked it up, and was holding it aloft by its chain, eyeing it almost greedily. Frodo looked at him fearfully, knowing Boromir lusted greatly for the Ring (and who wouldn't? It was a talking ring after all).  
  
"Boromir," warned Aragorn. This did not seem to wake Boromir from the trance like state that the Ring had put him in.  
  
"It is a strange fate the we should suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing. So small a thing." He was still entranced by the Ring. I was thinking along the same lines, but since my two-day long lessons, where the evil of the talking Ring had been thoroughly impressed on me, I knew better, and knew Boromir was only saying that to try and get the Ring.  
  
"Boromir," Aragorn said sharply. This time Boromir looked up. "Give the Ring back to Frodo."  
  
Boromir slowly paced back to Frodo and Aragorn. "As you wish," he said holding out the Ring to Frodo. As soon as it came within his reach, he grabbed it, coldness replacing the fear in his eyes. I saw Aragorn take his hand away from his sword hilt as soon as Frodo got the Ring. "I care not," continued Boromir, trying to convince himself of that as well as Aragorn and the rest of us.  
  
But Boromir did care. He had wanted the Ring, wanted it for himself. And Aragorn had been prepared to kill Boromir to keep it away from him. It was the first time that I really understood the power of the Ring and its hold on Boromir. And it frightened me.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
I wasn't as bored as I had been before, because I loved playing in the snow. Sometimes I did slow down the company by falling (and Aragorn had to catch me which annoyed him sorely and therefore pleased me), I was usually far ahead capering around in the snow like a three year old. Many of the company found this rather pathetic, but Gandalf certainly didn't.  
  
"Let her have her fun while she can. Dark days are yet to come," he would say and smile at me. A rather dark premonition, but of course I had known this was suicide from the beginning and had ignored it, and I was still pointedly trying to do so, knowing there was nothing I could do about it.  
  
The unfortunate thing was that my particular level of fitness did not allow me to caper constantly, and when I stopped capering, I began to have warm food cravings, and since I was too tired to caper, I couldn't take my mind off of those cravings. My distraction could no longer come from the music box because Legolas still had it, and I couldn't even reach the elf because he and Lara were so far ahead, not that he would give it to me if I asked anyway.  
  
So I was left cold, sweat drenched which had turned cold the moment I stopped capering, bored and craving a whole lot of different foods. I picked up snow in my fur lined wool mitten and began to make a patty cake out of it, in an effort to keep my hands warm. I didn't exactly work, the patty cake I mean, but my hands did get warmer. I looked at the snow and an idea hit me. A slow evil grin spread across my face.  
  
I picked up a piece of snow and began forming it into a ball shape. I debated about my targets. I really wanted to get Aragorn but I could not get behind him, since he was doing a sweep. I settled for Legolas. He was quite far ahead, but I had a pretty good arm. I had played softball since I was five. That was the one thing I had going for me. I could throw things. If I couldn't shoot arrows or use a sword or swing an axe or blow people to smithereens with magic, then at least I could throw things at them.  
  
And throw them I did. I hit Legolas in the lower back with my snowball.  
  
"So close," I muttered. I meant to hit him in his butt.  
  
He whirled around to look for the culprit. His eyes immediately fell on me. Lara also turned around as her companion stopped. She looked at me and smiled, knowing that I had done it, but she would not say a word. For once, she was on my side. I kept on walking, keeping my eyes down, trying to look innocent, but the laughter threatened to burst.  
  
"You did it, didn't you?" he said glaring at me.  
  
"How can you blame it on me? You don't even know it was me," I cried.  
  
"I heard you," he informed me.  
  
Damn, I had forgotten that.  
  
"Why do guys always blame things on me? It could have been anyone," I whined in a last attempt to sound innocent.  
  
"Because it is always you who does them," called Aragorn from the back.  
  
"Hey don't get into this Aradork, or you'll get one too."  
  
"You just admitted to doing it," Legolas told me, returning my attention to him, though my attention didn't seem to wander from him too often. "And I recognized your voice."  
  
Since I couldn't think of a good retort, I just stuck my tongue at him and picked up some more snow. He did likewise.  
  
"I would be careful. I have excellent shot," I informed him.  
  
He came close to smiling. I do say close, but it was not quite there; he never actually smiled. "So do I."  
  
We began circling each other, but Gandalf interfered.  
  
"Enough," he ordered. "This is not helping. We must keep going."  
  
Legolas gave me one last icy look and dropped his snowball. I was about to do the same when I had a better idea. I turned and hurled the snowball at Aragorn. It missed completely, but I felt better for having at least tried to hit him. I no longer wanted to actually hit him. I had thought it over. Legolas was very patient with me. Aragorn was not as much so, and since he probably saw no need to keep me along, he probably wouldn't hesitate to chop off my head if given a good reason.  
  
So we continued on laboriously up the mountain. It began to snow, but soon the snow had become quite heavy. I was no longer a happy little girl; I was a depressed cranky (which I seemed to have been since I got here). I was sweating profusely and freezing. This was the definition of clammy. This was ultra-super-duper clammy. I was going to die of hypothermia from sweating. The sweat was immediately freezing on my skin as soon as it came out of wherever sweat came out of.  
  
To pass the time the time I invented a little song. It went as such:  
  
We're off to see the wizard  
  
The horrible wizard of Mordor,  
  
Because, because, because  
  
Because of the evil little Ring we have.  
  
Doo doo lee doo doo lee doo.  
  
I had never really liked the Wizard of Oz, but everyone knew the 'We're off to see the wizard' song. I had put it into context for this world.  
  
It did not amuse Gandalf or anyone else in the company, especially Frodo. After having sung it three time in a row, they ordered me to stop with many death threats as well as scared expressions. I was getting to them; this was both good thing and a bad thing.  
  
I became quite good friends with Gimli, Merry and Pippin. On the few occasions I had let myself talk to the Fellowship other than Lara (I was usually too busy complaining, or listening to music, or just trying to stay alive) I had talked to them, especially on the way up the mountain. They were all very good company, and didn't mind each other's company and they all seemed to have an endless amount of stories to tell that kept my mind off the cold.  
  
When the snow became very deep (up to my waist), we had to start carrying the hobbits. I offered to take one, but at first Boromir and Aragorn just shrugged me away as a nuisance. They had far too much pride. The attitude was: if he can carry two, so can I. I kept bugging them, telling them that I needed company and if a person was on my back they could talk to me more easily, and if they were that determined they should carry the same amount they could just switch around every once and a while. Finally Boromir consented. Aragorn would not have consented, just because it was me, but since Boromir did, his pride obligated him to do likewise.  
  
I would have liked to take Frodo. He was the lightest of the hobbits and I hadn't talked to him much. But I decided not to ask since Aragorn was carrying him (he didn't trust Boromir to do so), and Aragorn would not have let me just because I was me and he probably thought I would steal the Ring or throw Frodo off a mountain. I finally settled for Pippin.  
  
The moment I received him, I regretted my insistence. He was the heaviest of the hobbits (though I never let him know that. It was not very nice to call people who were actually lighter than you fat). I sunk deeper into the snow and it was a lot harder going up the mountain with another 70 pounds on your back. But I kept quiet, knowing Aragorn would love it if I quit right away and he could prove how much I sucked. So I shut up and kept going. I had far too much pride for my own good, just like the other two.  
  
On the plus side though, he did keep my back warm and keep me entertained.  
  
Eventually Gandalf called a halt, and returned down the slope a bit to a place sheltered from the wind and snow. As soon as we stopped I and everyone else became extremely cold. It was then that I learned another new and very weird fact about elves. They did not feel cold. Lara and Legolas were standing around not even putting extra cloths on. I unpacked my sleeping roll. I was about to crawl into it when Gimli came over and brought me some food. I didn't want it. I was too cold to be hungry.  
  
"No thanks, I'm fine," I told him, shooing him away.  
  
"You must eat, Lady April,"  
  
"Fine I'll eat if you stop calling me Lady. I'm a girl, not a princess and certainly not a lady."  
  
"Alright La - April," he agreed.  
  
I took the food. It wasn't that great. It was uncooked, and tasted awful. A half-rotten apple, some very stale bread and a few nuts. I drank half- melted snow.  
  
"Gimli," I said suddenly as he turned to leave. "Do think I'll survive this trip?"  
  
He looked at me for a second before answering. He obviously didn't know how to respond to this question that was asked in a way that suggested that I wasn't expecting an optimistic answer, but was hoping for one. "I doubt it," he said finally, answering truthfully.  
  
"Do you think it was a mistake for me to come?"  
  
"Yes," he said definitely. "You would have been much happier in Rivendell. So would have, I think, the others. As for me, I would have rather stayed at Erebor with the rest of my kin."  
  
I smiled a pitiful smile at him, and shrugged. "Not much we can do now," I said. "Oh well." This seemed to end the discussion, and Gimli wandered away. I was surprised that I felt so little self-pity and self-loathing. Maybe they balanced each other out.  
  
I gathered up my sleeping roll and went to find the person farthest away from the edge we were near and snuggle up to them to keep warm.  
  
I ended up cuddled between Legolas and Aragorn. Somewhere deep in my subconscious a full blown war was raging. I was between two men, one of them my enemy and the other my crush (although by day he was also my enemy). But my mind was too busy thinking about the cold and the tiredness I felt. So I went to sleep in all my cloths and my sleeping roll, still shivering, between Legolas and Aragorn.  
  
And had some very weird dreams.  
  
* * * * * * * * * * * *  
  
I woke in exactly the same state. Lara obviously didn't need as much sleep as Legolas, because she evidently hadn't roused him to relieve her of her watch.  
  
We continued up the mountain. I took Pippin again. I didn't particularly want to, but I wasn't going to let Aragorn gloat. He was just waiting for me to stop and ask him or Boromir to carry the hobbit, when he would have a very good reason to laugh and call me weak. I don't know why I cared, but I had had enough of his put-downs. He would not get that chance.  
  
Soon the rather heavy-but-not-too-heavy snowfall had turned into a full- blown blizzard. I was reduced to looking through slits, because I could not open my eyes wider than that without being blinded. I dug through snow up to my chest. I was cold, sweat drenched and my clothes were soaked through, making me even colder. We were on a ledge no more than 10 feet wide. I clung to the useless hope that it would end soon, but it didn't.  
  
Suddenly Legolas - who had been patrolling the side with Lara to make sure no one strayed too close (in my opinion they were more likely to fall off than the rest of since they didn't have a four fout wall of snow to stop them from falling) - advanced to the front of the line.  
  
"There is a fell voice on air," he declared. That was it. He had gone just as insane as me. He was hearing things. At least I wasn't hallucinating that badly.  
  
"Ha! I told you," I shouted. "I'm not completely insane. Lagolas is hearing voices." I don't think anyone heard me, or if they did, they certainly didn't heed my opinion.  
  
But Gandalf seemed to support Legolas' statement. "It's Sauruman!" he shouted.  
  
As soon as he had finished boulders fell from somewhere above us. They landed on the edge of the ledge. I flattened myself against the inside of the trench we had dug for ourselves.  
  
"He's trying to bring down the mountain," yelled Aragorn. "Gandalf, we must turn back!"  
  
For once I whole-heartedly agreed with him.  
  
"NO!" was Gandalf's insane answer. This was completely nuts. We were all going to die if we didn't get out of the blizzard.  
  
Gandalf clambered out of the trench, only to sink back down to his knees. It was an improvement though. He began shouting in some language I didn't know, most likely the one Legolas and Aragorn spoke all the time. I couldn't tell whether it was the same or different.  
  
As Gandalf was speaking, it seemed that the voice on the air (I could actually hear the voice now if I strained really, really, really hard) changed its speech too, or at least went to different words.  
  
Suddenly lightning struck above us and a huge avalanche of snow and ice boulders came crashing down. I threw myself against the wall of the cliff and curled up into a little ball, covering my head and prayed that the avalanche wouldn't kill me.  
  
It didn't, but it hurt so much I wished it had. Miraculously, I wasn't knocked out from the impact. I stayed immobile for about twenty seconds, then realized that I needed to get out, or I was going to freeze to death or run out of air. Frantically I began digging upwards, or perhaps not. I couldn't really tell. I kept sinking to wherever was down though. I began to get desperate and just kicked with my feet and dug with frozen, frost bitten hands in any direction.  
  
Suddenly I felt a hand, or some other part of another person's body that I just assumed was a hand. I grabbed at it. It pulled me upward.  
  
I gasped in air as my head broke the surface. I lay shivering, wet, and miserable for a while before looking up at my rescuer. Blue eyes looked down on me with a worried expression. It was the first time I had seen Legolas show any emotion. It cheered me up slightly (and by cheer up I meant that I momentarily forgot the cold for about three seconds then remembered).  
  
"Th-thanks," I muttered through chattering teeth. I twisted around to try and get a better look at my body. I couldn't see anything too horrible, like a leg dangling at the wrong angle, but I'm sure that as soon as I undressed (and I would not remove one layer of clothing until I was at least a mile away from snow), I would find that I had done a Micheal Jackson in reverse. Black and brown bruises covering my entire white skinned body.  
  
"Get up," he told me.  
  
My brain sent the message to my legs that they were to move, but apparently they didn't receive it. I remained motionless, a huddled and shivering pile on snow.  
  
"Icanth," I replied, involuntarily slurring my words.  
  
He looked at me pityingly.  
  
"Don't leave me here," I pleaded.  
  
"Of course not," he responded. He pulled me gently. I warmed immediately at his touch, but as soon as it broke, the cold hit me again. It was only forgetfulness for those precious moments. I hated crushes.  
  
"Can you stand?" he asked. I nodded.  
  
He left me to stand huddled in my soaking cloak leaning against the cliff wall for support. I regretted nodding. Giving a negative sign would have meant more seconds of blissful forgetfulness.  
  
Soon the rest of the fellowship began emerging. Gimli's beard had gone white. Aragorn and Boromir were just emerging, their hair covered in snow. Gandalf came up next. Lastly the hobbits poked their heads through the mounds of snow. They were shivering and wet and looked in far worse shape than I did, which was, in some disgusting twisted way, almost comforting. Well at least it satisfied my vanity knowing that I had fared better than someone for once.  
  
"We must get off the mountain!," shouted Boromir. "Make for the Gap of Rohan and take the west road to my city." My thoughts exactly, though I couldn't remember where exactly the Gap of Rohan was or which city was Boromir's.  
  
"The Gap of Rohan takes us too close to Isenguard!" shouted Aragorn.  
  
All of my newfound respect for his wisdom dissipated in a metaphorical cloud of smoke. I say metaphorical because, had it been real, I could have attempted to dry and warm myself with it.  
  
"If we cannot pass over the mountain, let us go under it," suggested Gimli. "Let us go through the mines of Moria."  
  
Ah now there was an idea. I cheered silently for Gimli. Since I hardly had strength to move I was not about to shout.  
  
Gandalf looked doubtful though. He looked about to refuse. My heart sank. I was going to die on some god-forsaken mountain. Well whether I lived or died, if we kept going up I would eventually reach heaven. Unless god really had forsaken me and the mountain then I could die and go to hell where it would be warm.  
  
"Let the Ring bearer decide?" declared Gandalf grimly.  
  
Yes, I thought. I assumed that Frodo in his current condition would choose any alternative to this mountain. I would, but I wasn't Frodo, and from my perspective Frodo had spent far more time with Gandalf than would be recommended to keep oneself mentally stable.  
  
"We cannot stay here!" cried Boromir. "This will be the death of the Hobbits!"  
  
A very good point. My earlier distrust for him dissipated entirely, and was replaced by an unwavering respect for thinking up such a good excuse to get off the mountain without involving himself or me.  
  
Gandalf ignored Boromir. "Frodo?" he asked again.  
  
Frodo looked ready to quit. I was extremely grateful. "We will go through the mines," he declared.  
  
Had I had the strength I would have gotten down on my hands and knees and kissed his disgusting hairy feet.  
  
Gandalf, on the other hand looked very pained. Obviously his plan had been to kill us because he did not like the thought of getting off the mountain where we would be warm. I got it now. Gandalf had tried to sway Frodo so that Frodo would follow him like a dog, but it hadn't worked.  
  
I shook my head. Those thoughts were not good. I was hallucithinking. There had to be a logical explanation not to go into Moria, but at that moment I just couldn't see it.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: That was a pretty long chapter. Just want to tell you my readers that I may not update for a while because I have to write an original fic (which infringes on my copyright laws but that is purely coincidental) for English. It is supposed to be a short story and when my friend said 4 pages I was like ahhhh, but then she said minimum and I was like phew, and then she said it should be around 10 pages, but the teacher gave no maximum so was I was like 10 pages yah right muhahahahahahaha.  
  
So after those interesting facts please REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Ciao  
  
Mouse angel 


	12. The Entrance to the mines

Disclaimer: I had this dream last night where Peter Jackson and Tolkien were related and I was sole heir to all of their possessions including the rights to Lord of the Rings and that I had managed to assassinate everyone else in my family, and so owned the right. Then I woke up and realized it all wasn't true. Damn it.  
  
A/N: I just looked at the last updated date and realized I haven't done any updating in FIVE MONTHS. I didn't even do it over Christmas b/c 1) I didn't have access to my computer and 2) I had to read Crime and Punishment which is an evil book that is long and has no point. Anyway just so you know I HAVEN'T DIED. I've just been super busy with IB and pretending to stalk this guy and a lot of other things in school. I think I should go live a hermit like and do nothing but write fanfiction. Can't do that though. Stupid administration, etc that makes me go to school.  
  
Oh yah I've ROTK twice. It rocked my socks. Such a cool movie. Yeah 11 Oscars for LOTR. Woot!!!! My friend who hates lotr was really pissed at this and many ppl in our school who are obsessed with lotr want to kill her. Its amusing.  
  
I am now the proud owner of TTT special extended edition and Pirates. Woot some more!!!  
  
Okay. Chapter. R & R!!!!!!!  
  
Chapter 11  
  
Going down Caradhras was much more fun than going up. I slid the whole way down, only stopping briefly every few hundred yard to prevent myself from falling off any of the cliffs. Aragorn told me that this was dangerous and that I would probably fall off and kill myself. Note he didn't tell me to stop.  
  
There was only one problem with this otherwise easy mode of downward motion. The windshield factor. I was so cold by the time we reached the snow line, that I could hardly feel my legs and arms, let alone my fingers, feet and toes.  
  
Gandalf told me to walk it off. He wasn't kidding.  
  
We walked the whole day and near dusk we finally reached some river which was an indication of Moria. It actually was more like a trickle of water like those you get when you wash your car. This seemed to worry Gandalf, not that someone might be washing their car (I didn't mention this, not needing anymore looks), but that there was so little water.  
  
The stairs to Moria were near the river. They were also long and endless. It took over an hour to get up them.  
  
When we finally reached the top, it seem a sort of let down to what I had expected (the way Gimli raved about it you'd think this would have been 2000 times better than a Beatles resurrection concert; but it wasn't). There was huge lake that had dammed up and blocked the river. Apparently this was a bad thing. Apart from that we were in a huge flat valley, and across from us were dark, immense and foreboding cliffs that shot up endlessly into the night sky.  
  
"The Walls of Moria," proclaimed Gimli in awe.  
  
"Does anyone else just see cliffs?" I asked skeptically.  
  
This seemed to amuse Legolas. Again it was hard to tell because of his facial expression, or lack thereof. Gimli looked rather hurt that I would make a crack at him, but it wasn't that I was particularly nice to anyone; I was just particularly insulting to a select few.  
  
"Dwarf doors are invisible when closed," retorted Gimli with his little nose in the air, as we approached the cliffs. He began tapping on them with his axe.  
  
"Yes Gimli," said Gandalf. "Their own masters cannot find them, if their secrets are forgotten."  
  
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" drawled Legolas, rolling his eyes.  
  
I snorted under my breath quite a few times with suppressed laughter. Legolas had made a joke, and not only any joke, a me joke. At this point I could no longer contain myself and laughed out loud. I laughed so hard, I cried, then was hyperventilating so hard I was wheezing, emitting sounds every few seconds that sounded like a cross between a howling cat and a sick cow. I just couldn't get over Legolas making a joke.  
  
"Now let's see," said Gandalf running his hand over the rocks and pointedly ignoring me. "Ithildin."  
  
I managed to control myself enough to gasp out one word, before returning to my uncontrolled fit of laughter that no one except Legolas and Lara seems to get. "What?"  
  
"It mirrors only starlight and moonlight," replied Gandalf, obviously not wishing to repeat the word for my benefit. As if on cue the clouds cleared from the moon.  
  
I looked at the door. "Holy shit!" I cried. There, where there had been nothing but rock a minute ago was beautiful picture of an arched gate. It was drawn in a beautiful silvery material that glowed softly. Two silver pillars held up a silver arch. Between these two columns was a silver star and few others around it. In the arch was written in flowing silver handwriting a phrase in a language that looked like Latin; at any rate I didn't understand it (maybe the person just had really bad handwriting, but it didn't look like that).  
  
Now came the question. "How the....Never mind. I couldn't care less." This made Gimli more than a little ticked, but Legolas grinned at me. So I was antagonizing Gimli, as long as someone stayed on my side. Legolas was probably more useful too if it came to a fight because he had arrows and blades. He was also more attractive.  
  
"It reads 'The Doors of Durin - Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter'" said Gandalf, directing this at me.  
  
"What do you suppose that means?" asked Merry.  
  
"Oh well it's quite simple. If you are a friend, you speak the password and the doors will open," replied Gandalf. He set his staff against the star and cried in a loud, commanding voice, "Annon Edhellen, edro hi ammen! (Gate of the Elves, open now for me!)."  
  
Nothing happened. Yes, quite simple.  
  
I giggled. Gandalf glared at me and tried again. "Fennas Nogothrim, lasto beth lammen. (Doorway of the Dwarf-folk, listen to the word of my tongue.)."  
  
Again nothing happened.  
  
"Nothing's happening," stated Pippin.  
  
Gandalf glanced at him, slightly annoyed, but soon turned back to the doors. If it had been me, I'd have been in the lake by now.  
  
Gandalf began pushing on the doors. It made him look very foolish, trying to move a cliff. It was trying to move a mountain; if love couldn't (it really can't it's just a metaphor), then he certainly couldn't. "I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves...Men...and Orcs."  
  
"Well you obviously don't anymore," I muttered under my breath so that even Legolas couldn't hear. I didn't have much respect for Gandalf after he'd tried to kill me on Caradhras.  
  
"What are you going to do, then?" asked Pippin innocently.  
  
"Knock your head against these doors, Peregrin Took! And if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish questions, I will try to find the opening words," said Gandalf angrily. For Pippin it was an empty threat; for me he would have probably followed through with it.  
  
We sat around for a while waiting for Gandalf to recover suddenly from Alzheimer and remember the password. Sam and Aragorn said good-bye to Bill the pony. I didn't think it was such a good idea to just let a pony go into the wild, but Aragorn said he knew the way home. I highly doubted that (only because Aragorn said it). I felt sorry for Sam though. He really loved that pony.  
  
Merry and Pippin were throwing rocks in the water. I joined in. I loved throwing things, especially at certain people.  
  
Aragorn caught Pippin's arm as he was about to throw a stone in the water. "Do not disturb the water," warned Aragorn.  
  
I rolled my eyes but didn't throw any more rocks in. For some reason I felt that this was not a great time to disobey Aragorn. The water did look a bit chilling, and you never knew what was in it.  
  
After having attempted several more times to open the doors (including using many different passwords and pushing on it some more), Gandalf dropped his staff and sat down, frustrated.  
  
"Oh it's useless," muttered Gandalf.  
  
Frodo went over to him and looked up at the light gates thoughtfully. "It's a riddle," said Frodo slowly. Thank you for that useful piece of information, but I think most of us had figured that out fifteen minutes ago. "Speak 'friend' and enter." Again very useful piece of information. "What's the Elvish word for friend?"  
  
"Mellon," replied Gandalf. At this point the doors creaked open, revealing a dark cave (ah useful Frodo). There really wasn't much else you could say about it. It was dark and scary and I didn't particularly want to go in.  
  
I happened to be a sheep though and followed when everyone else went in. Add that to another of the countless stupid things I have done since coming to Bizarro World (aka Middle Earth to be politically correct). Gandalf lit his staff and a circle of light appeared around us to light the way (whichever particular direction 'the way' might be). The brightness was almost blinding at first and I saw little black spots, but soon it cleared. I still could hardly see anything around me though. I kept stepping on things and not knowing what they were, and not particularly wanting to know what they were.  
  
"Soon, Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the Dwarves! Roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meat off the bone," declared Gimli, obviously proud of this.  
  
"How pleasant," I drawled sarcastically.  
  
Gimli chose to ignore this. "This, my friend, is the home of my cousin, Balin," he contnued. Note to self: avoid Balin at all costs. "And they call it a mine! A mine!"  
  
"This no mine. This is a tomb," said Boromir.  
  
I looked down, as Gandalf shone his light on the floor. I suddenly realized that what I had been stepping on was bone, the flesh long gone. My eyes widened with fear, and my heart stopped for what seemed like an eternity. I'm surprised I lived. It was a gruesome sight. Skeletons lay strewn all over the cave, arrows protruding from almost all of them.  
  
"Noooo! Noooo!" Gimli's strangled sob echoed through the cavernous dark.  
  
"Shut up," I whispered at Gimli, not wanting anything unpleasantly to jump out of the darkness.  
  
Legolas bent and plucked an arrow from one of the corpses. He examined it, then cast it away in disgust. "Goblins," he muttered. He raised his head peered into the darkness as if looking for those in question (I assumed he could actually see through the blackness).  
  
I had to suppress the urge to bolt out of the cave and right down the stairs. How he knew was beyond me, but I didn't care how. It didn't matter; I believed him. Right about now I was ready to accept anything Legolas said. If he had plucked one of Aragorn's hairs and said that he was a goblin, I probably would have wasted no time killing (or attempting to kill) Aragorn.  
  
"We make for the gap of Rohan," Boromir declared. "We should never have come here. Now get out. Get out."  
  
I needed no further urging. I bolted for the door. No sooner had I reached the hobbits – who had had the same idea as me, but couldn't run as fast due to their stubby legs – than a long tentacle reached out of the water and grab Frodo by the ankle.  
  
I screamed. Frodo yelled. The rest of the hobbits yelled. Everyone began yelling and splashing in the water. I was torn between attempting to slip by this creature or run into the mines. The latter seemed like a slightly safer choice as the things in the mines were DEAD AND UNLIKELY TO GET UP AND TRY TO KILL ME.  
  
After much yelling, hacking and arrow shooting (and in my case cowering behind Gandalf who was holding has lighted staff aloft), we, and by we I mean the rest of the Fellowship, managed to free Frodo.  
  
"Into the mines," yelled Gandalf. I needed no second urging. I dashed off blindly into the darkness, desperate to get away from the octopus with a gazillion tentacles. I heard the creature rise itself out of the water and come after us. It moved surprisingly nimbly for something with a gazillion tentacles to look after. It was however to big to actually fit in the mines, so instead of catching us, it simply caused a huge rock fall. I watched fearfully as the entrance to the mines collapsed and blocked our only way out.  
  
"We now have but one choice," declared Gandalf as the noise subsided. "We must face the long dark road of Moria. Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world."  
  
I dreaded to think what could be worse than many orcs.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Maybe I'll post another chapter by the end of this week. I dunno. I'll see what happens but it's kinda unlikely I'll get too much done on this before the summer cuz I have a really long essay to write (like 4000 words).  
  
toodles  
  
Mouse angel 


End file.
